Bordesley Abbey - Redditch, Worcestershire
Bordesley Abbey is situated to the northern part of Redditch in Worcestershire. Redditch was designated a new town in 1965 but it’s roots run much deeper. In June 1138, Waleran de Beaumont was given the title of the 1st Earl of Worcester. To mark his arrival in the county, gave a large portion of land in the Forest of Feckenham to the Cistercian monks from Garandon Abbey in Leicestershire to fund Bordesley Abbey.
The land was marshy with much woodland and thick brambles and not many people had settled in the area. The first buildings would have been wooden structures, as the priority was to clear the land for farming and other work. When the stone Abbey was complete, the floors were prone to flooding and would sink due to the marshy land not being drained.
The land was marshy with much woodland and thick brambles and not many people had settled in the area. The first buildings would have been wooden structures, as the priority was to clear the land for farming and other work. When the stone Abbey was complete, the floors were prone to flooding and would sink due to the marshy land not being drained.
The monks built a complex drainage system and diverted the nearby River Arrow to help drain the meadow where the Abbey was built. The new course went on in a straight line for nearly a third of a mile and was divided into drainage channels and ditches, some were redirected to make fish ponds to supplement the monks diet and others to power a watermill and for other sanitation. The Abbey had around 20 granges including Hewell Grange in Tardebigge and there main source of income was sheep farming for the wool. This was a very lucrative business for the Abbey, so good that they were heavily taxed in 1210 by King John who demanded 40,000 lbs in weight of silver.
|
|
Daily life for the monks would have been tough. They laboured hard, farming, fishing, building as well as having to follow a strict daily religious ritual.
At 2am was Matins, when the monks would meditate in the chapel along with time for reading and prayer.
Between 3 and 5am was time for meditation and private prayers in the church.
At 5am, Lauds sung in the church.
6am was Prime, the first service of the day followed by mass, the major church service of the day.
7am would have been Tierce, the 2nd service of the day.
At 8am was the chapter meeting where everyone would have received their tasks for the from the Abbot.
8:30 was breakfast time.
9 o’clock until midday was time for work.
12 midday was Sext, a midday service for those in the Abbey.
1 until 3pm was work.
3pm was Nones, a service for those in the Abbey.
4pm was time for the main meal of the day which was eaten in silence.
At 5pm, Vespers were sung in the church.
5:30 was recreation time.
At 6pm was Compline, the last service of the day and between 7pm until 1am was the Great silence, time to sleep.
The Abbey was demolished in 1538 by order of King Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries and the property was sold but not before many of the local villagers of Redditch took a lot of the masonry to reuse as building materials and later for use for headstones, some of which can still be seen at the site today.
In 1315, Guy de Beauchamp, the 10th Earl of Warwick, was buried at Bordesley Abbey. He was known as the Black Dog of Arden, due to his swarthy appearance, a nickname given by his enemy, a favourite of King Edward II, Piers Gaveston, who was executed by Guy de Beauchamp. In March 1864, James M. Woodward conducted an excavation of Bordesley Abbey. He found a stone coffin that contained human remains, in which he claimed to be the remains of Guy de Beauchamp. Whilst working late one night, Woodward believed that he saw the ghost of Guy de Beauchamp at his grave in the form of a black dog.
During the time of the Black Death in 1332, there were 34 monks, 1 novice, 10 conversi and 17 serving men at the Abbey. The abbey must have been hit hard by the pandemic as by 1381 the number of monks was reduced to just 14 with 1 Abbot.
The main industry of Redditch during the 17th Century was needlemaking and this carried on in the town through to the early part 20th Century. The needle factories were harsh, dangerous places to work, the average lifespan of a needlepointer was just 32. They would suffer from Pointers Rot, a lung disease that was caused from breathing in the metallic dust from sharpening the needles on the grindstone and the dust from the grindstone itself. These men really did work hard and play hard, well known for bareknuckle boxing and heavy drinking. When there were no fights planned, they would fight each other for entertainment and practice. A famous needlemaker from Redditch was Thomas Paddock, known as the Redditch Needle Pointer, who became an English champion bareknuckle boxer in the early Victorian era.
During the early Victorian Cholera epidemic there were 80 cases I Redditch, 38 died and were buried together in a plague pit near to the ruins of Bordesley Abbey.
Close to Bordesley Abbey is the forge mill needle museum which was a needle mill that was built in 1730, maybe on the site of a previous mill. Forge Mill is the only needle mill that is still in working order, it has a huge waterwheel which is connected throughout the museum by a series of belts that is powered by the river Arrow.
Staff at Forge Mill often hear creaks in the floorboards and other noises all of the time which is expected in old buildings. When one member of staff was working late one evening and everyone else had gone home, she locked up so that no one could gain entry. As she was working in the office, she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the Gallery area and towards the office door. She was waiting, trembling with fear, waiting for someone or something to open the door but there was nothing. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard the footsteps, they are light and quick, believed to be that of a woman. There was another time when she was in the office, when she heard the entrance door open. She thought it was another member of staff so she shouted down to her to tell her that she was in the office. She had no reply so she went down the stairs to see where her colleague was but there was no one there. She remembered that she’d locked the entrance door so that no one could enter. When she asked her work colleague where she had been, she said that she had been in the Bordesley Abbey visitors section of the museum which isn’t attached to Forge Mill.
In the early hours one morning, an alarm was set off and an alert was sent to one of the keyboard of the museum. She attended forge mill with her husband and they went to the scouring mill section of the building. They heard voices of two women coming from the upper floor. They went upstairs shouting that whoever is there shouldn’t be there but as they reached the top of the stairs there was no one there.
An old Redditch story tells of a young woman who worked at the mill who was having and affair with the owner of the mill. When he rejected her after she believed that they were in love, she threw herself from one of the windows on the top floor of the mill. Her body went into the pond at the rear of the mill and was swept into the watershed where she was torn to pieces. The workers managed to find and gather most of her body parts but not all of them were recovered. People believe that she returns to the mill to look for her missing body parts.
Residents in the houses behind forge mill have seen phantom monks walking through walls of the houses and across gardens.
Monks have been seen all over Redditch, including the Kingfisher Shopping Centre, a mile away from the Abbey. A security guard was about to use an elevator in Canon Newton House one night when he noticed that a man dressed in robes like a monk was standing behind him. He ran into the elevator and pressed the button for it to go down, as the doors shut, he noticed that the ghostly monk had followed him in, as he could see him in the mirror. As the elevator went down to the next level, the monk stayed on the upper floor level. The guard refused to work on the upper floor again.
In the 1960s, a Redditch man who emigrated to Australia was trout fishing in one of the little streams that feeds into the river Arrow, just South of the Abbey Ruins. It was an overcast day when he caught a glimpse of two figures in cassocks, heading down the road towards Bordesley Corner. He said that the strange thing was that although he had a clear view of the road from beneath the hedgerow, he could not see their legs, he could only see their heads and shoulders.
A man walking his dog, early in the morning in 2004, noticed that a large branch had fallen from one of the horse chestnut trees and a man was cutting it up with a chainsaw. On that same evening, he took his dog for a walk over the meadows accompanied by his wife and a friend who was staying with them for a week. He showed them the huge sections of logs that had been cut up earlier in the day and his friend picked one up to take home for a craft project. As they were leaving, a hooded figure that looked like a monk walked towards them and just stared at them. They said that they couldn’t see the bottom half of his legs, it was like they were in the ground.
There are a lot of mounds around the site of the site of the Abbey that are from where archaeologists have recovered the site up after excavation, so perhaps the ground level is now higher than it was when the monks were alive. Monks aren’t the only ghosts that have been seen around the area.
Around 1992, a local man and his friend took his dog for a walk around the meadows. They noticed a man with a dog walking towards them, near the brick bridge that is over the stream. He was an old man wearing a hat. He approached them and said hello, after he walked past, the dog that they were walking tried to pull away in the opposite direction of the man and his dog, which was unusual for him as he liked to greet everyone. As they looked around to try and control the dog, the man and his dog had gone, they’d just disappeared. They said that the strange thing was that he looked like a normal living man, not transparent like in the movies.
At the entrance to Bordesley Abbey was St. Stephen's Chapel which was a place of worship for the people of Redditch. One evening a man taking a walk around the meadows was walking towards the old chapel area, as he walked past the ruins and noticed a white figure on the hill. It looked like it was gliding down the hill. As it got nearer, he could that it looked like a woman with long dark hair in a white dress.
People who lived in the town centre would use St. Stephens chapel for Sunday service until 1805 when it was dismantled and relocated on the green in the town centre. It was finished in1855. St Stephen's Church still has part of an original tiled floor from the Abbey.
In the 1990's, a group of teenagers would regularly walk all over Redditch and the surrounding areas. One night they were walking from Batchley, a local housing estate and towards the site of the original St Stephens chapel, next to the track that leads to the Abbey ruins. There was a low lying mist across the meadows which made the Abbey look spooky as it disappeared under the fog. It was around 2am and they were standing near the big tree that stands amongst the old graves when they heard a loud noise that echoed across the meadows. It sounded like someone was using an axe to chop a tree down. It continued for around half an hour, they walked around but couldn't find the source.
Redditch gained its name from the small stream that flows from the Batchley Brook, it has a dark orange colour caused from the red marl that is abundant in this area. Redditch grew up around Bordesley Abbey and would have been known as Rubeo Fossato, Latin meaning Red Dyke. Evidence of an abandoned medieval village lies nearby that may have been part of the original Redditch village.
At 2am was Matins, when the monks would meditate in the chapel along with time for reading and prayer.
Between 3 and 5am was time for meditation and private prayers in the church.
At 5am, Lauds sung in the church.
6am was Prime, the first service of the day followed by mass, the major church service of the day.
7am would have been Tierce, the 2nd service of the day.
At 8am was the chapter meeting where everyone would have received their tasks for the from the Abbot.
8:30 was breakfast time.
9 o’clock until midday was time for work.
12 midday was Sext, a midday service for those in the Abbey.
1 until 3pm was work.
3pm was Nones, a service for those in the Abbey.
4pm was time for the main meal of the day which was eaten in silence.
At 5pm, Vespers were sung in the church.
5:30 was recreation time.
At 6pm was Compline, the last service of the day and between 7pm until 1am was the Great silence, time to sleep.
The Abbey was demolished in 1538 by order of King Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries and the property was sold but not before many of the local villagers of Redditch took a lot of the masonry to reuse as building materials and later for use for headstones, some of which can still be seen at the site today.
In 1315, Guy de Beauchamp, the 10th Earl of Warwick, was buried at Bordesley Abbey. He was known as the Black Dog of Arden, due to his swarthy appearance, a nickname given by his enemy, a favourite of King Edward II, Piers Gaveston, who was executed by Guy de Beauchamp. In March 1864, James M. Woodward conducted an excavation of Bordesley Abbey. He found a stone coffin that contained human remains, in which he claimed to be the remains of Guy de Beauchamp. Whilst working late one night, Woodward believed that he saw the ghost of Guy de Beauchamp at his grave in the form of a black dog.
During the time of the Black Death in 1332, there were 34 monks, 1 novice, 10 conversi and 17 serving men at the Abbey. The abbey must have been hit hard by the pandemic as by 1381 the number of monks was reduced to just 14 with 1 Abbot.
The main industry of Redditch during the 17th Century was needlemaking and this carried on in the town through to the early part 20th Century. The needle factories were harsh, dangerous places to work, the average lifespan of a needlepointer was just 32. They would suffer from Pointers Rot, a lung disease that was caused from breathing in the metallic dust from sharpening the needles on the grindstone and the dust from the grindstone itself. These men really did work hard and play hard, well known for bareknuckle boxing and heavy drinking. When there were no fights planned, they would fight each other for entertainment and practice. A famous needlemaker from Redditch was Thomas Paddock, known as the Redditch Needle Pointer, who became an English champion bareknuckle boxer in the early Victorian era.
During the early Victorian Cholera epidemic there were 80 cases I Redditch, 38 died and were buried together in a plague pit near to the ruins of Bordesley Abbey.
Close to Bordesley Abbey is the forge mill needle museum which was a needle mill that was built in 1730, maybe on the site of a previous mill. Forge Mill is the only needle mill that is still in working order, it has a huge waterwheel which is connected throughout the museum by a series of belts that is powered by the river Arrow.
Staff at Forge Mill often hear creaks in the floorboards and other noises all of the time which is expected in old buildings. When one member of staff was working late one evening and everyone else had gone home, she locked up so that no one could gain entry. As she was working in the office, she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the Gallery area and towards the office door. She was waiting, trembling with fear, waiting for someone or something to open the door but there was nothing. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard the footsteps, they are light and quick, believed to be that of a woman. There was another time when she was in the office, when she heard the entrance door open. She thought it was another member of staff so she shouted down to her to tell her that she was in the office. She had no reply so she went down the stairs to see where her colleague was but there was no one there. She remembered that she’d locked the entrance door so that no one could enter. When she asked her work colleague where she had been, she said that she had been in the Bordesley Abbey visitors section of the museum which isn’t attached to Forge Mill.
In the early hours one morning, an alarm was set off and an alert was sent to one of the keyboard of the museum. She attended forge mill with her husband and they went to the scouring mill section of the building. They heard voices of two women coming from the upper floor. They went upstairs shouting that whoever is there shouldn’t be there but as they reached the top of the stairs there was no one there.
An old Redditch story tells of a young woman who worked at the mill who was having and affair with the owner of the mill. When he rejected her after she believed that they were in love, she threw herself from one of the windows on the top floor of the mill. Her body went into the pond at the rear of the mill and was swept into the watershed where she was torn to pieces. The workers managed to find and gather most of her body parts but not all of them were recovered. People believe that she returns to the mill to look for her missing body parts.
Residents in the houses behind forge mill have seen phantom monks walking through walls of the houses and across gardens.
Monks have been seen all over Redditch, including the Kingfisher Shopping Centre, a mile away from the Abbey. A security guard was about to use an elevator in Canon Newton House one night when he noticed that a man dressed in robes like a monk was standing behind him. He ran into the elevator and pressed the button for it to go down, as the doors shut, he noticed that the ghostly monk had followed him in, as he could see him in the mirror. As the elevator went down to the next level, the monk stayed on the upper floor level. The guard refused to work on the upper floor again.
In the 1960s, a Redditch man who emigrated to Australia was trout fishing in one of the little streams that feeds into the river Arrow, just South of the Abbey Ruins. It was an overcast day when he caught a glimpse of two figures in cassocks, heading down the road towards Bordesley Corner. He said that the strange thing was that although he had a clear view of the road from beneath the hedgerow, he could not see their legs, he could only see their heads and shoulders.
A man walking his dog, early in the morning in 2004, noticed that a large branch had fallen from one of the horse chestnut trees and a man was cutting it up with a chainsaw. On that same evening, he took his dog for a walk over the meadows accompanied by his wife and a friend who was staying with them for a week. He showed them the huge sections of logs that had been cut up earlier in the day and his friend picked one up to take home for a craft project. As they were leaving, a hooded figure that looked like a monk walked towards them and just stared at them. They said that they couldn’t see the bottom half of his legs, it was like they were in the ground.
There are a lot of mounds around the site of the site of the Abbey that are from where archaeologists have recovered the site up after excavation, so perhaps the ground level is now higher than it was when the monks were alive. Monks aren’t the only ghosts that have been seen around the area.
Around 1992, a local man and his friend took his dog for a walk around the meadows. They noticed a man with a dog walking towards them, near the brick bridge that is over the stream. He was an old man wearing a hat. He approached them and said hello, after he walked past, the dog that they were walking tried to pull away in the opposite direction of the man and his dog, which was unusual for him as he liked to greet everyone. As they looked around to try and control the dog, the man and his dog had gone, they’d just disappeared. They said that the strange thing was that he looked like a normal living man, not transparent like in the movies.
At the entrance to Bordesley Abbey was St. Stephen's Chapel which was a place of worship for the people of Redditch. One evening a man taking a walk around the meadows was walking towards the old chapel area, as he walked past the ruins and noticed a white figure on the hill. It looked like it was gliding down the hill. As it got nearer, he could that it looked like a woman with long dark hair in a white dress.
People who lived in the town centre would use St. Stephens chapel for Sunday service until 1805 when it was dismantled and relocated on the green in the town centre. It was finished in1855. St Stephen's Church still has part of an original tiled floor from the Abbey.
In the 1990's, a group of teenagers would regularly walk all over Redditch and the surrounding areas. One night they were walking from Batchley, a local housing estate and towards the site of the original St Stephens chapel, next to the track that leads to the Abbey ruins. There was a low lying mist across the meadows which made the Abbey look spooky as it disappeared under the fog. It was around 2am and they were standing near the big tree that stands amongst the old graves when they heard a loud noise that echoed across the meadows. It sounded like someone was using an axe to chop a tree down. It continued for around half an hour, they walked around but couldn't find the source.
Redditch gained its name from the small stream that flows from the Batchley Brook, it has a dark orange colour caused from the red marl that is abundant in this area. Redditch grew up around Bordesley Abbey and would have been known as Rubeo Fossato, Latin meaning Red Dyke. Evidence of an abandoned medieval village lies nearby that may have been part of the original Redditch village.
#trueghoststories #bordesleyabbey #bordesleyabbeyghost #bordesleyabbeyhaunting #bordesleyabbeyhistory #redditch #redditchghost #redditchhaunting #redditchhistory #worcestershire #worcestershireghost #worcestershirehaunting #worcestershirehistory #ghostsofredditch #ghosttalespodcast #ghosttales #ghosttalesbythefireside #cistercian #cistercianmonk #cistercianabbey #forgemill #forgemillneedlemuseum