Bisham Abbey

Bisham Abbey

A preceptory of the Knights Templar, later an Augustinian priory and briefly a Benedictine abbey, now the Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre. The building dates from the 13th century with alterations and extensions in the 14th century, and was largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Further alterations and extensions followed in the 17th century, with minor restorations in 1859 and mid-20th-century changes.

The structure is constructed of mixed materials: brick, rendered surfaces, chalk, and chalk with knapped flint, with some exposed timber framing on the west side. Several old tile gabled roofs cover the composition. The building comprises roughly four main blocks. The first runs east-west and faces due north; the second connects at its west end to the first and runs south-easterly; the third continues from the second and contains the great hall and screens passage; the fourth runs north-east at right angles to the hall. Most of the building is two storeys, though some sections include an attic storey. A tower rises at the south-east corner of the northern range.

The tower was built in 1560 of brick with stone quoins and dressings. Its windows are mostly blocked, though some two-light casements remain. An octagonal turret at the north-east corner finishes in an embattled parapet, while the opposite corner has a large chimney-stack containing multiple chimneys.

The south-west or entrance front has a central section of chalk, four bays wide, with one-bay gables at either end. The centre features two brick gables with crow steps and two large chimneys with diagonal shafts, offset heads and clay pots. Three 16th-century cross windows with pediments occupy the first floor. The ground floor has three three-light casements with pediments. On the left is a 13th-century entrance porch with fine outer and inner doorways and a quadripartite ribbed vault. The doorways have colonettes and moulded arches, and the large planked inner door with original ironwork survives. Above the doorway is a small three-light casement, and above this an embattled brick parapet. The left gable of chequered chalk and flint is set back slightly with a steeply pitched roof, a two-light cusped traceried window at upper level, and a small two-light window with a two-centred arched head below. The right gable is chalk with a two-light leaded casement at attic level in a moulded frame. Below this is a five-light mullioned and transomed window with casements at the bottom level. The ground floor on the right has a small three-light casement with pediment and a blocked arched opening.

The east front has coved eaves cornice and four bays. The right bay features a two-storey canted bay with hipped tile roof and large mullioned and transomed window on the first floor, with three arched openings to the ground floor. To its left on the first floor are two two-light casements with hoodmoulds and a large window in the third bay similar to that in the canted bay. This section of ground floor has a small square-headed blocked opening on the left and one narrow and three wide arched openings with moulded heads that formed part of the former 14th-century cloisters. Two further arches run through behind the canted bay openings.

The interior contains significant features. The great hall retains the remains of a late 13th-century window of three lancet lights, now blocked, in the east wall. A mid-16th-century stone fireplace with coupled Corinthian columns on either side, standing on enriched pedestals and supporting an entablature with a carved frieze, dominates the hall. Above this is an early 17th-century oak overmantel given by James I to Lord Windsor around 1605 for his house at Worcester; when that house was sold, the eighth Earl of Plymouth presented it to Bisham Abbey. The screens and projecting gallery above are late 15th century, and the lower part of the hall wall is 17th-century panelling. Five blocked arches in the screens passage originally gave access to the 13th-century kitchens. A good 18th-century staircase with moulded balusters lies to the north of the hall.

The Great Chamber on the east side, built by Lord Montagu around 1370 and now known as the Elizabethan Room, contains an extremely fine collar purlin roof of five bays with moulded arched braces to collars, moulded crown posts braced four ways, and double side-purlins that are hollow chamfered and finely moulded.

The site served as an abbey for only three years. Originally a preceptory of the Knights Templar, it became an Augustinian Priory in 1337 and a Benedictine abbey in 1537. The abbey was dissolved in 1540, and the estate was granted to Sir Philip Hoby in 1553. He began rebuilding the property, as did his half-brother who succeeded him. Most of this rebuilding work was carried out between 1557 and 1562.