Beaulieu Palace House and Abbey

In my last post, you saw that Margaret and I toured the impressive National Motor Museum in Beaulieu (pronounced “bew lee”). Our entrance tickets also got us into the gardens, the Palace House, and the abbey.

The 13th century village of Beaulieu grew around the abbey. The abbey was built on donated land from King John in 1204 with support from the king, who had decided to help establish an abbey so that the monks would put in a good word for him upstairs. John was a notoriously bad person, so he needed all the help he could get.

Beaulieu grew and became more established as the monks traded goods and tended medicinal gardens. The gardens include more than medicinal herbs today, and are large and absolutely lovely to walk through. Above our heads was the monorail that offered rides to visitors, but we did not take the opportunity.

The Beaulieu Palace House was apparently the gatehouse to the abbey, with some “rennovations” in the 1800s. It is magnificently grand, so hard to imagine what is meant by “gatehouse” for an abbey, unless by rennovations, it is meant that a great deal of construction was involved. Today it is one of the Treasure Houses of England, a collection of ten of the most impressive stately homes, palaces and castles open to the public.

As we approached the Palace House, we noticed a falconer about to begin a demonstration. We found a place to sit and were entertained right away because the man had his microphone on, and was encouraging people to ask questions as we waited. The questions were good and we stayed entertained then, and for the better part of an hour, as he moved into his formal presentation.

First he introduced us to Bonnie the Red Tailed Hawk. She stayed on his arm and flew to a perch, and back, dutifully as the falconer talked and gave her small treats. When she was on his arm, he held her in place with his thumb on her lead, thus she was “under his thumb.” He explained that falconry is the taking of wild prey naturally by using birds. They do not have to be specifically falcons, but the prey always must be wild. The birds have no love for their handlers, and a successful partnership is based on extreme levels of trust, when the bird has decided that the human can be trusted to assist in getting food. The bird will only willingly work with the human when it is very hungry. After she eats, the man said, she’ll ignore him for the next three days. This is described by saying she is “fed up.”

The sport of falconry he said may be the world’s oldest sport, and there are references to it in Mesopatamia in 2000 BCE. The most famous falconer is King Henry VIII. He said there is a lot of vocabulary in the English language that comes directly from the sport, like when someone is flirting with you, they are “making a pass” at you. Or the other two phrases I highlighted above (and one below).

Bonnie went to rest in the shade, and the falconer brought out another hunting bird. About the same time, the sun grew warmer and we had to seek shade ourselves. It was our third very hot, sunny day in England. I told Margaret that I will confidently go home and proclaim that the UK has the best summer weather! (wink) Directly behind us was the Palace House, and we walked inside.

The 1st Earl of Southampton, Thomas Wriothesley, bought the property in 1538, and is the one who converted the gatehouse into a manor house. The Earl of Southampton was one of the present Lord Montagu’s ancestors and the estate has remained with the family ever since. The current Lord Montagu opened the house to the public, and has turned much of it into a celebration of his father’s life, his car collection, car magazine, and decision in 1952 to open the front room of the home so that visitors could view his cars. This, of course, became eventually the Motor Museum on the property.

I was impressed with the grandeur, but in this home, I think I was most impressed with the style of decorating. It is more colorful and more whimsical than any grand estate I have seen inside. I particularly loved the bathrooms. (Oops, I guess in the UK they are called “toilets” which seems unneccessarily vulgar to my American ears.)

From the second floor, we had a marvelous view, and saw the falconer still teaching. He was explaining how he put a hood over his hunting bird to get her to be more compliant, because she didn’t know what was going on. In other words, she is “hoodwinked.”

Our final favourite place in the Palace House was of course the kitchen, and Margaret noticed an opportunity to have a bite. 🙂 I loved the wall of bells, that reminded me of similar bells for staff in Downton Abbey, that I am re-watching right now. From the kitchen we could look into a pretty interior open-air patio.

The food got us to thinking about lunch, and Margaret was in the mood for burgers, so we ate hamburgers at a food vendor. There were many places to eat that day because of the huge crowds there for the BBC World Gardeners’ Spring Fair that I mentioned in my last post. After a pretty decent burger, we made our way to the famous Abbey.

Though I said above that the Abbey grew, things changed with Henry VIII. (I keep noticing how the same names keep shaping history in these parts…) In the 1530s, King Henry VIII began dissolving monasteries. Beaulieu Abbey church, cloister and chapter house were destroyed. The refectory, domus and two of the gatehouses remained under the proviso that they were not to be used for religious purposes. The refectory is now known as Beaulieu Parish Church. We explored the current Abbey church, which is quite small, and the Domus, once the dormitory, which has a small museum on the ground floor, and a great event space on the second floor.

We had finally seen all the other attractions, and it was now time to make our way to the main event of the day: The BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair. This turned out to be very similar to a Gardeners’ Fair in the US, with all things related to home and property. There were audiences listening to talks about gardening, cut flowers, potted flowers and fruit trees, solar powered lights, self-contained waterfall systems, umbrellas, lawn furniture, gnomes, trellises, vegetable starts, and of course, ice cream. I particularly liked the large garden areas set up temporarily that looked for all the world like a garden that had been there for a year.

Not in the target market for a garden purchase, I instead talked with a representative of Fauna & Flora, an animal and habitat conservation organization, and found out that its founding Board Member, Sir David Attenborough, was to celebrate his 99th birthday in five days. I learned my favourite tidbit of the day when the man asked me, “Do you know what animal New Forest is famous for?” to which I answered, “Ponies?” and he laughed and said, “Well, yes, ponies too. But New Forest has the world’s largest leeches!” Medicinal leeches (Hirudo medicinalis) can grow to 20 centimeters long, have 3 jaws and 100 teeth. (shudder) And as impressive as that is, I think his conviction that New Forest is famed for leeches is probably optimistic.

We were tired then, after spending the morning at the Lymington Saturday Market, then the bulk of the day in Beaulieu. It was time to head home and refresh for a moment before we would meet with Derrick and Jackie for dinner once more.