Beeleigh Abbey And Attached Wall

Beeleigh Abbey is a former Premonstratensian abbey converted to a house, founded around 1180 by Robert Mantell. The surviving buildings date from the 13th to 16th centuries, with later alterations and areas of rebuilding, including substantial additions made around 1912. The structure is built of septaria, pudding-stone and mixed rubble with areas of 16th-century red brick, ashlar and Purbeck marble dressings. It includes timber-framed inserted partitions and a 16th-century range with brick nogging. The roofs are covered with plain tiles.

Of the original abbey buildings, only the east range of the cloister and the stub of the south range survive. The east range is L-shaped, with the chapter house oriented east-west and the dorter (dormitory) running north-south. These are separated by a barrel-vaulted parlour or passage. Projecting south from the dorter are the remains of a range with an east-facing gable, probably housing the passage to the reredorter (latrine block), into which a 17th-century staircase has been inserted. Built into the angle between this range and the dorter is a three-storey timber-framed range. Of the south range, or frater (refectory), only the site of the day stairs and slype (passageway) survives, now used as the main entrance.

The building ranges from two to three storeys throughout, with a single-storey and attic addition built around 1912 into the south-east angle.

The chapter house dates from the early 13th century. The upper floor has been largely rebuilt except on the south side. It comprises four bays. The west side features paired entrances with hollow-chamfered pointed arches supported by a triple central shaft with waterholding bases and bell capitals. The jambs have dogtooth decoration with nook-shafts. Flanking these entrances is a pair of two-light windows with quatrefoil plate tracery and central shafts with moulded capitals and bases. An eroded demi-angel corbel sits above. The first floor has a 19th-century square-headed window of four cinquefoil lights, with a timber casement in the rendered gable. The north wall has a single lancet with a cinquefoil head at ground floor and three two-light windows above, the outer two being reset medieval fabric. The wall shows scars interpreted as the springing of a former barrel-vaulted building that adjoined to the north. The east wall has eroded stone quoins repaired in brick. At ground floor are two square-headed windows of two cinquefoil lights dating from the late 14th century, the northernmost restored, with two similar 19th-century windows above and a four-light timber casement in the gable. The south wall has a restored late 14th-century two-light window to the east and a lancet to the west. Above are two lancets and a further two-light window.

The dorter range comprises four bays with the parlour or passage to the north. The west wall is concealed by the range added around 1912, when the early 16th-century first-floor windows corresponding with those on the east side were blocked. The east wall has a 20th-century window inserted into a former blocked doorway of the parlour or passage. The dorter undercroft has three three-light 15th-century Perpendicular windows with panel tracery, the northernmost renewed. A further blocked window in the south bay contains a 17th-century oak doorway. Off-set buttresses have been repaired in 16th-century brick. The first floor has five early 16th-century brick square-headed mullioned windows, each of two arched lights. The reredorter passage range has a blocked Tudor-arched door with an adjoining blocked lancet and a rectangular light. There is a further rectangular light to the first floor and a casement in the rendered gable.

The frater range's west wall has a single light at ground floor. The first floor has been rebuilt in brick and features a 16th-century Tudor-arched doorway converted into a window. There are twin diagonally-set chimney stacks. The north wall has a two-light late 14th-century window at first floor. The south wall has a 13th-century pointed slype doorway now forming the main entrance, with a timber casement to the east and another at first floor. There is a gabled dormer in the attic.

The timber-framed block was built in the late 16th century as a three-storey wing onto the remains of the reredorter passage range, with a roof gabled to east and west. Originally jettied on two floors on the west side, the ground-floor front wall has since been brought forward. The close-studded wall with possibly original brick nogging shows evidence of former square projecting oriel windows on brackets at first and second floors. The first-floor jetty bressumer projects forward with crenellated decoration. The south flank has two full-height storey posts and exposed studwork in the front two bays. The centre bay reveals remnants of further square projecting windows at ground and first floors.

Inside, the chapter house is divided down the centre by three octagonal Purbeck marble piers with bell capitals and moulded bases. The space is covered by quadripartite vaults with finely-moulded ribs and large foliate bosses in alternate bays. The ribs spring from corbels on the outer walls, whose abaci run into a continuous string course. The damaged west door repeats the external detailing. There is an inserted door to the parlour or passage.

In the dorter range, a 13th-century pointed door leads to the parlour or passage. This room retains traces of a painted foliate scroll frieze on the north and south walls and above the west door. The dorter undercroft is subdivided longitudinally by three Purbeck marble columns with bell capitals and moulded bases. It has quadripartite vaults with chamfered ribs springing from wall corbels with a variety of decorative treatments, including knotting with spiral and foliate patterns. Traces of wall painting survive. The fireplace in the west wall has a double-chamfered segmental arch decorated with fleurons. The spandrels are carved with encircled quatrefoils containing shield, beast's head and mouchette motifs. Above is a band of giant fleurons and demi-angels bearing musical instruments, all very worn. A crenellated rail is flanked by buttresses terminating in octagonal crenellated pinnacles. The fireplace is lined with medieval pamments (floor tiles) and has 17th and 18th-century cast iron firebacks. There are two doors in the west wall: a 13th-century pointed door to the frater range with a 17th-century door to the north.

The dorter at first floor is now lined with bookshelves concealing the west wall. Inserted stud partitions stand at each end, that to the south supporting a reused 15th-century screen with embattled rail. The wide-span roof dates from the early to mid-16th century and has two collars, the lower carrying crown posts with thin longitudinal braces. Curved ashlar pieces spring from inner wall plates, forming with similarly curved soulace pieces the framing for a former plaster barrel ceiling. The remains of five crown posts can be seen, but the roof continues largely concealed to the south, where part of the barrel ceiling is still intact.

In the frater range, the north wall has a 13th-century slype doorway now leading to the kitchen. The first-floor room is entered by a 16th-century timber Tudor-arched doorway with carved spandrels in a square-headed surround, which was approached by a flight of external stairs prior to the addition made around 1912. The roof has seven cants with slightly curved ashlar and soulace pieces of 15th-century or earlier date.

The timber-framed block has jowled posts and internal curved wall bracing with some reused timber. The roof comprises three bays, unrelated to the bay divisions of the frame, with A-frame trusses with high collars and substantial straight arch braces. A near-central partition is partly of timber-framing and partly of brick and masonry with an arched fireplace on the first floor. All windows now have iron leaded-light casements, some with reused moulded timber mullions and some of 17th-century type with timber security bars.

Attached to the south-west is a wall approximately two metres high, built of red brick with a blue diaper diamond pattern, in two lengths cranked in the centre. It has a chamfered plinth.

The canons migrated to Beeleigh around 1180 from Great Parndon, which had in turn been colonised from Newhouse in Lincolnshire, the first house of the order in England. At the time of the Dissolution in 1536, when it was home to nine canons, the abbey passed to John Gate of High Easter. He alienated it to William Marche of Calais in 1546, and it was in the possession of the Francke family by 1580.