Small is Beautiful: Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse and Willington Dovecote and Stables

I’ve now been in my job as Regional Director for the National Trust in the East of England for a full year. For me, it’s been a rather wonderful year, getting to know the places and people that make the East such a special region. But I regret to say that there are still some Trust places in the East that I’ve yet to visit.

Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse - the pillar next to the road is all that survives of the original arch.

I helped to correct that in part today by visiting two of our smallest places (in terms of size), located at the most westerly edge of the region. They also happen to be particularly special places in their own right.

 Ailwyn. Or not Ailwyn.

Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse is part of a medieval monastic complex that was once the fourth largest in the country. What’s left of the monastic building is now a manor house that has been adapted as a school. The Trust's ownership extends to the Gatehouse only, gifted to the Trust by the brother of Lord Fairhaven in 1952 in memory of his wife, a descendent of the barons de Ramsey.

 

Plaque in memory of Diana de Ramsey, wife of Henry Broughton (brother to 1st Lord Fairhaven)

The property is open on the first Sunday of the month only, and is entirely run by volunteer support. Yet here, at Ramsey, some of the finest medieval minds were at work. Documentation scattered across archives all over the world show that medieval scholars were hard at work here, drawing some of the earliest maps, preparing complicated calculus, and making depictions of the night sky. 

Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse - interior     

The Dissolution meant that Ramsey Abbey was broken up, and its buildings mined for building materials (partly the reason why the village of Ramsey looks so picturesque today). The small scale of the property belies, therefore, a much more significant past.

My next stop was Willington Dovecote and stables. As well as boasting a fine, distinctive sixteenth-century dovecote, possibly built for a visit by Henry VIII, Willington has a very special place in the history of the National Trust in the East of England. It was the very first building to be acquired in the region by the National Trust, in 1914, following a successful campaign by Miss Orlebar, daughter of the local vicar, who bought it to save it from demolition.

 

Willington Dovecote

The stables opposite the dovecote offer yet further intrigue. A fine fireplace in the upstairs room suggests that this was more than just a place to stable horses or cattle. A graffito on the fireplace even suggests John Bunyan paid a visit from nearby Bedford (I wonder how accurate that is, mind…).

 

John Bunyan woz 'ere

So much at Willington has been lost. There would formerly have been a range of buildings here, part of a substantial landed estate. It’s much like Ramsey Abbey, in other words. It is today the shadow of something that would, in its time, have been of national significance, a haunt of kings and lords. You don’t have to look far in the East of England to uncover intriguing stories like this. It’s why all of us who work or volunteer for the Trust in the East count ourselves as being so very lucky.