Penny Churchill takes a look at a remarkable medieval home which has come to the market in Essex: Beeleigh Abbey.
The 850-year-old, Grade I-listed Beeleigh Abbey starred in Country Life’s architecture pages a couple of years ago, with a pair of articles: one on the history of this incredible medieval estate, and a sister article looking at the building’s later years in the custodianship of the Foyle family, of Foyle’s bookshop fame.
Following the death of Chrostopher Foyle a couple of years ago, Beeleigh Abbey is now for sale, along with its associated 366-acre estate beside the River Chelmer, a mile from the market town of Maldon, eight miles from Chelmsford, and 38 miles from central London. Trains to London Liverpool Street take half an hour, making this a medieval monastery from which you can commute.
The original medieval bones of the building can be made out in many rooms at Beeleigh Abbey, Essex.
The Chelmsford office of Strutt & Parker and Essex agents Whirledge & Nott quote a guide price of £5.45 million is for the whole, but the estate is also being offered in up to four lots.
The 9,743sq ft main house is on the market at £2.5m. It boasts five reception rooms, six bedrooms and six bathrooms.
The main house also comes with several outbuildings and a three-bedroom cottage, all set in 35 acres of gardens, grazing, woodland and wetland adjoining the River Chelmer.
There are also 319 acres of farmland for sale at £2.6m; several farm buildings offered at £200,000; and a former poultry building set in 10¼ acres of farmland, at £150.000.
The history here is extraordinary. The Abbey was founded in about 1180 near Maldon, Essex, as a monastery for the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré in northern France (known as the Premonstratensians or White Canons),
The incredible library at Beeleigh Abbey. Photographed by Paul Highnam for Country Life Magazine.
Following the Dissolution, many of the abbey buildings were demolished and, in 1540, Henry VIII granted Beeleigh Abbey and its lands to Sir John Gate, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who was later executed for treason for supporting Lady Jane Grey.
In the 18th century, the Abbey was used as a public house, but, by the late 1800s, was in a ruinous state. Restoration of the medieval buildings was begun in 1912 by a Capt Grantham and subsequently by one Richard Edwin Thomas (the story of which was told in Country Life on September 30, 1922).
Beeleigh Abbey’s long association with the Foyle family began in 1943, when William Foyle, the co-founder in 1903 of the famous Foyles bookshop in London’s Charing Cross Road, happened upon it when boating on the Chelmer and was immediately captivated by the ancient building and its secluded woodland setting.
Having acquired the Abbey privately, he used it to house his vast collection of books and lived there until his death in 1963. His daughter, the notoriously autocratic Christina Foyle, inherited both the family business and the Beeleigh estate, where she lived with her army of cats until her own death in 1999.
The next owner of Beeleigh was William’s grandson, Christopher Foyle, who acquired it, not through inheritance, but using his own hard-earned cash, his aunt having left the bulk of her £60 million estate to the Foyle charitable foundation.
Foyle had worked for his aunt as a trainee manager in the 1960s, but, seeing little prospect of advancement within the firm and inspired by his love for aviation, he established a small air-taxi service in Luton. This he developed into Air Foyle HeavyLift, a major international freight operation flying mighty Russian Antonov planes capable of carrying anything from tanks and railway locomotives to emergency aid.
In 2000, he bought Beeleigh Abbey and a small proportion of his grandfather’s extensive library; the rest was sold at a Christie’s auction for £12 million in July that year.
With his wife, Catherine, he embarked on a four-year-long restoration of Beeleigh Abbey, its gardens and grounds, using a specialist team of builders, craftsmen, joiners and engineers. It was a remarkable undertaking that was duly recognised with the Maldon District Council Conservation Award in 2007, the RICS East of England Award in 2008 and the coveted RICS National Award for the best restored and conserved historical building in the whole of the UK.
In the course of the renovation, new plumbing and central-heating systems were installed, the kitchen and bathrooms were upgraded and the library roof was retiled. Many of the upstairs floors were rotten and were replaced with reclaimed Victorian oak timbers. Aged limestone flags were sourced from a French château and laid throughout much of the ground floor.
The legacy left by Christina’s cats was systematically eradicated, too, by ripping up floorboards and replacing whole sections of plasterwork. The gardens were rejuvenated with the addition of a large, heated Alitex aluminium greenhouse and lavish planting of trees, shrubs and borders, which, 20 years on, provide a wonderful backdrop to the Abbey’s ancient walls.
Beeleigh Abbey is for sale at £5.45 million — see more pictures and details.
Best country houses for sale this week
A house that's straight out of Cider With Rosie, and a picture-perfect cottage that's commutable to London make it into
