Newstead Abbey

Newstead Abbey stands in Ravenshead, Nottinghamshire, on ground once occupied by an Augustinian priory founded by Henry II around 1170. The priory was rebuilt in the late 13th century and enlarged again in the 15th, when a dorter, great hall and prior’s lodgings were added. It was designed to house at least thirteen canons, though only twelve are recorded at the Dissolution. The priory’s annual income was £167 16s. 11½d in 1534, yet it still paid a heavy fine of £233 6s. 8d to avoid suppression. The house was surrendered on 21 July 1539 by Prior John Blake and eleven canons, each receiving a pension. The estate passed to Sir John Byron in 1540 and became a country seat. Successive Byrons added wings and filled the house with art, but William, the fifth baron, ran through his fortune. He sold paintings, furniture and even trees to raise cash, leaving the Abbey stripped and decayed. On his death in 1798 the estate went to his great-nephew George Gordon Byron, later the poet, who grew up seeing Newstead as a romantic ruin. Visitors walk through the old priory’s refectory and great hall, now part of the mansion. The library holds books once owned by the Byrons, and the poet’s dog Boatswain has a grander monument than his master. Beyond the house, the landscaped park includes the lake where mock naval battles were once staged and where the lectern saved from the fishpond now resides at Southwell Minster.