Historic Description of Haughmond Abbey

Haughmond Abbey

Haughmond or Haghmon, was a house of Austin or Black Canons, dedicated to St John Evangelist and founded by William Fitzalan of Clun, in the year 1110. Established at first on a very modest scale, it was sufficiently prosperous in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to do a great deal of rebuilding and enlargement. Its clear income at the Suppression was £259.

After this it was converted into a dwelling-house by the Barkers, and apparently burnt out in the seventeenth century. Some of the later additions remain.

It is more pleasantly situated on level ground, with a range of wooded hills rising behind it, and a distant view of the spires of Shrewsbury.

On paying his sixpence (1926) for entrance the visitor receives an excellent printed account of the place by Mr Brakspear, accompanied by a plan of what exists and what was discovered by excavation in 1907.

The site of the church is farthest away from you as you approach. The large church-like building which is first seen is the infirmary hall, of the fourteenth century and nearly complete. Under the great window at the west end are two doorways which led to the pantry and buttery. Porches on north and south admitted to a space screened off from the main hall. There is a fine range of windows to the south, and on the north some later doorways.

At right angles to this, crossing its east end and projecting southwards, is the Abbot’s lodging, with a very conspicuous late oriel. The original end was square and had a great window. Returning to the west front of the infirmary hall and passing it, we come to a range of three fine chimneys (two in good preservation), or rather the projections made by great fireplaces – those of the kitchen.

A cottage is built up against these, inside. Entering, we find ourselves in the outer court, which is of rather irregular shape. Facing us (on the east) is the substructure of the dorter of the canons; the rere-dorter joined it obliquely at the south end and touched the Abbot’s lodging, enclosing a roughly triangular yard. On the north is the frater, and the kitchen adjoins it at the west end. Beneath the frater was a cellar. Crossing this, we enter the cloister court. Of the west range only the inner wall is left; in the corner by the frater (south-west) is the lavatory recess.

Of the east range a good deal is left, including some twelfth-century building. Going northwards, we first come to the parlour, a mere passage, and then to the chapter house. Originally oblong, the east end of this was made three-sided in the sixteenth century, and the fine timber ceiling, then put in, remains. But the chief feature is the elaborately ornamented entrance of the twelfth-century work. On the jambs of the doorway figures of saints were carved in the fourteenth century, four on each side: on left, St Augustine, St Thomas of Canterbury, St Katherine, St John Evangelist; on right, St John Baptist, St Margaret, an abbess (? St Milburga), and St Michael. The lateral arches are also very beautiful. Between this and the south transept of the church was the vestry.

On the north side we see only the western door from cloisters to church, on the jambs of which are Saint’s Peter and Paul have been carved. Thence to the site of the vanished church. Excavation has shown that it is the second church built here, the first having been much smaller, and that to the second church, which originally had no aisles, a north aisle and porch were added. Three inscribed slabs have been found; those in front of the high altar belonged to the Fitzalan family.

The stone building which had protected the head of the water supply exists near a pond on the hill, but is not accessible.

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