The speaker at April’s lecture meeting is interested in the end of the monasteries, and, as Monk Bretton is close to Sheffield and has an interesting Post-Dissolution history; it was the perfect site for fieldwork. But why bother? Don’t we know it all anyway? There are a lot of historical records, including suppression records, with which to map the process of destruction and rebirth that takes place on such sites. However, archaeologists have generally been more interested in the story of how the abbeys were founded, and how the architectural styles changed over time, rather than what happened after their Dissolution. The fact that the majority have a Post-Dissolution life that may be longer than the duration of the monastic occupation is often ignored. Simon Thurley in his 2007 Gresham Lecture ‘The Fabrication of Medieval History’ referred to the policy of the Office or Ministry of Works (M.O.W.) under the guidance of Sir Charles Reed Peers (1868-1952), which was summarised as “Our job is to throw up the distinctive character and individuality of the medieval constructor”. So it was that Monk Bretton was turned into a lovely ruin with a beautifully manicured lawn during the consolidation work carried out there from the 1930s to 1950s. In keeping with the M.O.W.’s policy the Post-Dissolution phases were seen as an inconvenience and swept away during the tidying up of the site. During the recent archaeological work, which the speaker directed, the aim was to explain how the functioning farmhouse created out of the monastic buildings was turned into a picturesque ruin. It is easy to blame people in the past, however, and there is still today the feeling that the Middle Ages are the ‘real’ or ‘pure’ past and that all the other interventions are to be regarded as unfortunate. This leaves us with a rather black-and-white picture of the dedicated religious in their abbeys and priories and the unprincipled secular determined to exploit the situation at the Dissolution. In advertising its annual conference, the Society of Church Archaeology has stated “In Yorkshire the avarice and greed of those who sought to benefit from the Dissolution came into stark conflict with the piety of those who aimed to retain vestiges of the Old Religion” (2010) but this is a simplification of a relationship that was more complex, as our speaker aimed to show in his presentation.
Founded in 1153, Monk Bretton was a Cluniac house under the jurisdiction of Pontefract. In 1281 it became an independent Benedictine house (although there was bloodshed over this when an armed group led by the Prior from Pontefract disputed control of its wealth!). It was dissolved on 39th November 1538. Its estate was valued at £246 19s 4d. It was granted to William Blithman, one of the assessors. He grew up locally and was one of Cromwell’s key agents in Yorkshire, which would explain Blithman’s interest in Monk Bretton. The priory was purchased at the suggestion of Bess of Hardwick for her stepson Henry Talbot in 1580. It left the possession of the Talbot family during the early 17th century and then slipped into historical obscurity. The site was cleared by land owner John Horne during the 1920s and taken into guardianship by the Office of Works in 1937 and turned into a public monument. The last owner, John Horne, corresponded with the President of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Dr Walker. Literature published about the site explains Monk Bretton was a Talbot residence. The residence was in the west range, where a stair case and gateway represented the core of the Tudor mansion but there is little that is Tudor in the present predominantly medieval range. Other Talbot mansions are known. The Earl of Shrewsbury was one of the richest noblemen in the country and the Talbot family owned Rufford Abbey (Nottinghamshire, 1540) where the main range was turned into a fancy house; a new build at New Hall Pontefract (1591), which was demolished to make way for the M62 motorway; and Worksop Manor (1590s).
The recent work began with an intensive resistivity survey of the core of the monastic site. It proved to be surprisingly empty of archaeological features, apart from a collapsed mine shaft that runs underneath the site. Apart from patches of debris showing where buildings were cleared by the M.O.W. there was little to be seen. However, an anomaly beyond the church seemed to show a set of walls. Test pits were dug in Easter 2010. A test pit dug north of the North Transept revealed walls and a piece of early to mid-16th century German stoneware was found, as well as an area of puddled clay in which there were lots of broken edges of window glass. These were the trimmings (never leaded) or offcuts from creating windows. They were not monastic but were 16th or 17th century in date.
This work was followed by further documentary research and the digging of a larger trench. When the old M.O.W. files were inspected a piece of graph paper dated 31st May 1950 was found on which there was a sketch plan of a building that was recorded near the North Transept wall. It had been recorded accurately but in rudimentary fashion before being back-filled because it didn’t fit the prevailing contemporary interpretative narrative that focused on the monastic rather than the Post-Dissolution archaeology. Further excavations in July 2010 dug up an area of the lawn and the area where window glass had been found. The latter revealed a boundary wall with puddled clay on one side and medieval garden soils beneath. It was not the intention to excavate a medieval garden and the trench was closed.
The trench north of the Transept was more complex because it revealed lots of walls and features. Here was evidence of Tudor building and Post-Medieval material culture but the more the excavators dug the less it seemed to make sense! The chief obstacle was the M.O.W.’s excavation technique which consisted of following walls to create a plan of the buildings on the site. Unfortunately this divorced the walls and buildings from their archaeological contexts and associated dating evidence, leaving them ‘floating’. However some nice pieces of a carved stone syncopated arcade from the Cloister were found.
Later building work appears to have respected an earlier feature that had been left in situ. This was interpreted as a ‘furnace’ during the 1950s but it turned out to be a closed-shaft garderobe built against a wall, complete with an exit chute. The M.O.W. excavators found pottery here and this was traced and turned out to be an almost complete urinal. Urinals are often found down reredorter drains. This suggests whatever was going on in the area was of a domestic nature but just north of the North Transept seemed like a strange place for a substantial building of this kind. However, Castle Acre Priory had a similar building running away from the North Transept.
The recent excavations also revealed late medieval coarse wares amongst the 1950s back-fill. The most interesting pieces turned out to be industrial wares. A 14th or 15th century drinking jug was badly corroded. Perhaps it had been used for boiling something acidic as part of a metal-working. A pot with greenish-blue deposit proved to be unexpectedly dangerous because the analysis revealed it contained copper arsenate! It had probably been used as a dye pigment. Similar vessels were discovered at Pontefract Priory. Clearly some interesting activity was going on at the Priory in the 15th century. However, the finds also reveal high status activity too. The current excavations uncovered a Germanic drinking glass or beaker as well as window glass, decorated with grisaille and lead canes. Nice windows and imported glass may suggest this was the early guesthouse.
Most of the walls related to the mid-16th century phase before the site came into the possession of the Talbot family. A lot of medieval stone was reused making dating the activity difficult. A large fireplace was reused and incorporated pieces from different fireplaces to create two water tanks. The edges of the tanks were chipped. The timber frame building resting on stone sleeper walls appears to have been a smithy and there is evidence of burning. Lots of good ceramics were recovered from the drain including so-called Cistercian wares and Blackwares as well as a decorative stone crocket (a decorative architectural element probably from a pinicle on the monastic church). Another metalwork sample proved to copper alloy containing significant traces of zinc and tin. This is the composition of bell metal and it is interesting that five bells are mentioned in the Suppression document. There was a lot of lead work too that had been cut off and twisted ready for melting down and recycling.
In the final phase dating to the late 16th century, much was demolished and filled-in. This is about the time when the site was acquired by the Talbot family. In addition to the construction of the smithy there had been some reconstruction at Monk Bretton under Blithman’s ownership elsewhere on the site. Parts of the Church Nave were demolished. Part of the North Aisle went to Wentworth where it was built into the Parish Church. Our speaker pointed out that one of the first things that Post-Dissolution owners did was to slight the church to ensure that the monks did not return. This was only prudent at a time when the political wind was blowing both ways. The eastern end of the church that was left appears to have been retained as a barn.
In order to better understand what happened at Monk Bretton in the late 16th and 17th centuries and before the M.O.W. tidied up the site, Ordnance Survey maps were consulted. One edition of 1931 was published just before the M.O.W. acquired the site. Another of 1906 shows a west range. Part of the farmhouse and medieval masonry were incorporated to create a long gallery. Photographs in Barnsley Archives Office show this as a long gallery with a timber-framed top hall, and with Tudor chimneys coming off it. People reused the stone from this Post-Dissolution building. The Tudor House seems to have had an inserted stairwell and a long gallery. In a letter from the last owner Mr Horne to Dr Walker of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, a series of investigations are described: ‘In the centre refectory wall is a circular structure which may have been a fireplace. There is a wall going through the centre of the building put in at the time of the 16th century…’ The circular structure must have been a bread oven. Another building described as the ‘administration building’ has been dated to the 13th century on the basis of some rather fine columns but archival research shows that the M.O.W. made extensive changes to this structure in the 1930s and ‘medievalised’ what probably started out as a stable or coach house in the Post-Medieval phase of Monk Bretton. During the 1930s Monk Bretton was ‘fossilised’ as a medieval monument even though by this time it had been transformed into a working farm.
The lecture showed that life at Monk Bretton went on long after the closure of the priory in 1538 and indeed the Post-Dissolution phase lasted as long as the duration of the monastic occupation. The recent archaeological work showed what happened to a site at the Dissolution and what was involved in the transition from an ecclesiastical estate to a secular one. Life went on the and to the peasant working the land there would not have been much, if any, difference. Sadly this continuity is often overlooked in the traditional narrative of the Dissolution being about the destruction of the monasteries and the expulsion of the monks. In this Monk Bretton is not on its own. There must have been hundreds of Monk Brettons in the landscape after the Dissolution. About one third of religious sites were destroyed; between a third and a half were converted into a house or farm; and about a fifth remained in parochial religious use. The situation is slightly different in Wales and very different in Scotland.
The Section is very grateful to Dr Willmott for kindly commenting on the text (though any mistakes that remain are the Hon.Secretary’s responsibility) and for providing photographs. Dr Willmott was planning to publish the more detailed report on the 2010 excavations in the YAJ, but is currently finalising the ‘grey’ report for English Heritage.Dr Willmott has also offered to speak to the Section about his work at Thornton Abbey in North Lincolnshire at a date to be confirmed.
Medieval Section of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society 