- marysia
- Apr 29
- 10 min read
Updated: May 1
by Ross Balzaretti
Nottingham 1st May 2026
Edward Lear (1812-1888) is best known today for his poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’, voted the most popular childhood poem in Britain in 2014. His fame in this field has continued from the 1840s to the present day. A typical verse is the following, first published in 1870:.
There was an Old Person of Sestri,
Who sate himself down in the vestry;
When they said “You are wrong!”
He merely said “Bong!”
That repulsive Old Person of Sestri.
While not perhaps one of his very best, this verse is interesting because the Sestri where the old person sat down is Sestri Levante, on the Italian Riviera (Riviera di Levante), in eastern Liguria, a place where Lear went for the first time in May 1860 on a sketching trip which began in La Spezia and ended in Rapallo. This visit is the main topic of this blog.
Although Lear is renowned as an author — of letters and fascinating unpublished journals — he regarded himself as an artist first and a writer second. His huge artistic output, numbering around 10,000 surviving sketches in various media and many oils, has only recently been taken seriously, notably by Jenny Uglow in an outstanding biography. Lear’s life was spent on the move, sketching and painting throughout Europe and well beyond. His last years, however, were more settled in his villas in San Remo on the western Ligurian riviera (Riviera di Ponente).
It was through teaching about travel, tourism and landscape history at the University of Nottingham that I became interested in Lear, rather than by reading his verse, perhaps a more normal route into his life and work. Lear appeared in Rediscovering Lost Landscapes, a book I co-authored with Pietro Piana and Charles Watkins which was published in 2021. We analysed hundreds of images produced by both professional and amateur artists to investigate the histories of current landscapes in northwestern Italy, including those of the Liguria region, showing how much has changed since Lear’s day but also what has not changed so much.
Lear in Nottinghamshire
While preparing this blog I discovered that Lear had visited north Nottinghamshire just before and again just after his first visit to Liguria in May 1860. That trip was part of a pattern he had developed of spending the winters in warmer climes because his health was often poor, usually Italy at this period, and the summers in Britain, when he mostly stayed with friends and acquaintances trying to sell his work, ‘on a marketing round of his friends and patrons’, as one biographer puts it.
This portrait photograph of Lear was taken in 1866. Other portraits taken around this time reveal more of his artistic, even bohemian, nature, confirming what his nonsense suggests; that Lear could be eccentric.
We know about his visits to Nottinghamshire from Lear’s detailed diaries kept throughout his life. In late November 1859 he was staying with the Chaworth-Musters family, probably at Annesley Hall (now derelict). They wanted to buy one of his large oil paintings, the ‘Bassae’ (full title ‘The Temple of Apollo at Bassae’, painted c.1854-55), but, as it had already been purchased for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, they settled for seven of Lear’s other drawings of sites from the Holy Land for 21 guineas each, a large sum at that time. Lear was astonished when Mrs Chaworth Musters showed him the “the door, with pistol shots of Lord B. still stands” (19 November 1859). On 21 November Lear moved on to stay with his friend Emma Bethell at Woodborough Hall: ‘at 2 or 3 came away from Annesley ― having made one of the “newest” & pleasantest visits. ― They sent me in a “break” ― well wrapped up ―: fog thick & cold. Reached Woodborough before 4.’ Emma was married to Mansfield Parkyns, a well-known explorer of eastern Africa whom Lear admired. This seems to have been more of a social visit than a sales opportunity.
Lear stayed again with the Musters at the same time the following year. Then he had recently returned from his trip to eastern Liguria having visited both Lerici and Genoa, well-known haunts of Lord Byron. Lear was understandably very excited to visit Newstead Abbey, Byron’s ancestral home. His diary entry for 3 November conveys his enthusiasm:
‘Soon after at 2 Mrs. C.M. drove me with the ponies ― just as last year ― only in finer weather ― thro’ Linby & Papplewyck ((Papplewick.)) ― (Walters away,) & the rough green lanes, to Newstead. To day it was most beautiful. We walked ˇ[half] round the water ― & I drew. Then the house ―: the lower monked rooms: the Cloisters, the gardens, so beautiful! The terraces! the close alleys & ponds: the balustrades & the Abbey arches ― the Dogs tomb. ― Inside, the tapestry & rooms, & endless care of Col. Wildman: the room of Byron ― just as it was: the great drawing room ― & the dining room: the skull ― &c. &c. All so sad & wild & strange, remembering too as I did all my early thought & reading ― & that I had thought also at Janina & Greece ― & Spezzia. ― A strange dream…. So I came away ― & I dare say Mrs. C.M. wondered at my interest ― for indeed they consider ― at least the Musters do ― that Lord B.’s verses & admiration of their grandmother was a liberty’.
Byron had pursued his neighbour Mary Chaworth when both were young to her and her parents’ irritation.
12-23 May 1860
Late in 1859, Lear had travelled back to Rome arriving on New Year’s Day 1860. He had spent much of the previous twenty years in the city, painting and selling his work. He also produced the first of his illustrated travel books there: Views in Rome and its Environs; Drawn from Nature and on Stone (1841). Rome was a volatile place at this period due to the wars of independence against Austria and as a result a disconsolate Lear left the city in May and travelled to Genoa with the intention of sketching the Italian Riviera for the first time.
At La Spezia, he met up with his Greek-speaking Albanian manservant Giorgio Kokali and together they travelled west via Sestri Levante to Zoagli and Rapallo. They walked most of the way on the old coast road and the numerous mule tracks which led into the countryside. There was no railway here until 1874, after which these places were never the same, hosting ever larger numbers of Italian and foreign tourists. Lear’s sketches are lost landscapes, captured shortly before these changes.
Lear proceeded to sketch continuously for two weeks with the intention to produce another travel book but it never appeared. His intention meant that his diary for this period was particularly detailed and now helps us interpret the surviving images. He made at least forty three sketches on this trip. There is not space to discuss them all here but most can be viewed online (see further reading), as a significant number of these sketches have survived in public collections. Others may still be in private hands.
On May 14 Lear was in the town of La Spezia where he wrote in his diary:
X5 Alack! ― Sultry & dim morning ― sunny. ― Did not like to tempt the silver wave, as the clouds were heavy. Wandered till 8, having risen at 6½. ― Breakfast. Saw a Genoa paper, whereby one is told that επαναζασις των Σικιλιων1 (‘the rebirth of the Sicilians’) is not snuffed out. ― Afterwards drew on the beach till 11 with G… and began another view of Spezia, very beautiful.
This seems to be this view of the town, in which he has captured the very specific shade of blue which these hills take on at some times of day.
Edward Lear, ‘Spezia 14 May 1860’, watercolour and sepia ink over graphite on cream paper. 17 x 50.3 cm.
Houghton Library, Harvard University. Public domain.
The reference ‘X5 Alack’ refers to five epileptic fits he suffered the night before. Lear used a ‘X’ to indicate these as he was secretive about these episodes, as epilepsy was not well understood at that time and regarded as shameful. In his newspaper Lear had read a significant event in the process of Italian unification which had happened only a few days before when Giuseppe Garibaldi had proclaimed himself ruler of the Sicilians in the name of the Savoy king.
Having spent three days drawing around La Spezia, Lear went to Lerici, famous as the place Percy Shelley died and redolent of romantic associations, which included Shelley’s friend Byron. This image is described by Lear : ‘On the beach is the house of Byron and Shelley – sad looking: but the views are very glorious.’ They had arrived at 10 then walked back and ‘It was 3½ [i.e. 3.30 pm] before I had done the view above it’.
Photograph of Casa Magni, late 1890s, photographer unknown, from Guido Biagi,
The last days of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1898).
Five days later on 21 May Edward was in Sestri Levante, where he made six sketches in a single day, which have all survived in Harvard’s library. One is this lovely watercolour of the town’s famous Bay of Silence viewed from the east.
Edward Lear, ‘Sestri Levante, 21 May 1860’, watercolor, Chinese white and sepia ink over graphite on cream paper. 54.5 x 36.5 cm, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Public Domain.
The precision with which he has drawn the buildings is typical of his draftsmanship in the traditional British topographical style, which was rather outmoded by this period when ‘romantic’ views of landscape were more fashionable. Lear’s interest in exactitude is reinforced by annotations on the drawing which read: "gy" "w" "w" "green & okr" "red" "wall" "garden" "okr" "all pines" "all olives" "dark Ilex" "pale" "rox" "sea" "dark Ilex." (‘grey’, ‘ochre’, ‘rocks’). This was a longstanding habit of Lear’s which enabled him to work up the rapid field sketch into a more finished form, often back in Britain. The rapid sketches are now often preferred by modern collectors for their immediacy and charm. Comparison with a modern photograph of the same view shows that this part of Sestri at least has not changed too much since 1860 and emphasises the realism and accuracy of Lear’s image.
Another of these Sestri sketches shows a group of stone pines (the source of ‘pine nuts’) looking back toward La Spezia.
Edward Lear, ‘Sestri Levante 21 May 1860’, watercolour and sepia ink over graphite on white paper.32.7 x 49.5 cm.
Houghton Library, Harvard University. Public Domain.
Of this group of trees he wrote, ‘I do not remember having seen such a mass of beautiful pines together except perhaps at Thebes’, where he had been way back in 1848. Clearly, his visual memory was remarkable. His interest in pines was longstanding: there is another striking image of some at Frascati, near Rome, published in his 1841 book of Roman views.
Edward Lear, ‘Frascati from Villa Mondragone, belonging to the Borghese’, coloured lithograph is Views in Rome and its Environs Drawn from Nature and on Stone (London, 1841) Plate 7. Public Domain.
A particularly fine view of Chiavari was made on 22 May.
Edward Lear, ‘Chiavari 22 May 1860’, watercolour and sepia ink over graphite on white paper. 39.2 x 55 cm. Houghton Library, Harvard University. Public Domain.
Lear wrote that the ‘City [is] pleasant and sparkling – gay with color: hills round, beautifully dotted, villas, olive and pine. Mountains beyond. Stones by roadside, hurt my knee’. The latter was achieved by falling a long way down a slope, which could in fact have killed him! Typically, he brushed it off and carried on drawing.
Lear’s final years
Lear left eastern Liguria at the end of May 1860. Once back in England he commenced his usual round of trying to sell his work and, as we have seen, he returned to the Musters in Nottinghamshire. He returned briefly to Liguria in 1864 when he continued along the western Riviera beyond Genoa. It was then that he seems to have thought of settling permanently in the region and in the early 1870s, he finally plumped for San Remo where he built a house he named Villa Emily, after Tennyson’s wife, a close friend.
Within a few years a five storey hotel was built which blocked both his view of the Mediterranean and the light from his studio, so he had a new house built not far away, this time called the Villa Tennyson. There Lear spent his last years, still travelling in Italy and beyond as far as India, sketching, painting, gardening and receiving a few human visitors. His main companion in these lonely years was his cat Foss and was bereft when Foss died late in 1887. Lear died on 29 January the following year and his grave is still to be found in the English cemetery in San Remo, near that of Foss and his other faithful servants, a sad reminder of a great author and artist whose artistic work is still insufficiently known.
Edward Lear Aged 73 and a half and His Cat Foss, Aged 16, Lithograph by Edward Lear, 1885. Public domain.
Thanks
I am very grateful to the Houghton Library, Harvard University for permission to reproduce Lear’s drawings and extracts from his diaries.
Further reading:
Matthew Bevis, Edward Lear: Moment to Moment (2022), catalogue of an exhibition held at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery.
Pietro Piana, Charles Watkins and Ross Balzaretti, Rediscovering Lost Landscapes. Topographical Art in north-west Italy, 1800-1920 (Boydell, 2021).
Jenny Uglow, Mr Lear. A Life of Art and Nonsense (2017), available in paperback.
Useful links:
Most of Lear’s Ligurian sketches can be viewed at https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/hou01475_hou01475c02223
Lear’s Diaries can be viewed at https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/24/resources/3092 https://viewer.lib.harvard.edu/viewer/URN-3:FHCL.HOUGH:9468180?canvasId=https%3A%2F%2Fnrs.lib.harvard.edu%2FURN-3%3AFHCL.HOUGH%3A9468180%3AMANIFEST%3A3%2Fcanvas%2Fcanvas-drs%3A44447495
Marco Grazioli, ‘A Blog of Bosh’. https://nonsenselit.com/ and https://leardiaries.wordpress.com/ (extracts from Lear’s diaries).
Ross Balzaretti
Ross Balzaretti is Emeritus Professor of Italian History at the University of Nottingham. His published work since 1990 has focused on Italian history between the end of the Roman empire and the beginning of the twentieth century, especially the early medieval period. He has written widely on the history of travel to and within Italy, which has included analysis of historic landscape and the drawings made of them, including those by Edward Lear.
This article is published by Marysia Zipser, Founder & ACT Ambassador, Beeston, Nottingham. https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/ https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog
All our stories since 2017 are here https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog so please dip into them anytime.
Please feel free to write your feedback, remarks/reactions to Ross in the Comments box below, to which he will respond, and to share/forward this article/blog link via email to friends, colleagues and to socials as you wish. Thank you.
by Emily White
16th April 2026
A much-loved attraction
Nestled alongside the historic waterways of Nottinghamshire, the Beeston Canalside Heritage Centre stands as a living tribute to the area’s rich past and enduring community spirit. What was once a row of canal workers’ cottages—alive with the voices and livelihoods of families who depended on the water -the Centre is now an important hub for the local neighbourhood.
The Centre first opened to the public in June 2017 and has since found its way into the hearts of the local community. It is now busier than ever. When first restored and opened, yearly visitor numbers were expected to be around 20,000. The Centre now regularly exceeds 80,000 a year.
Establishment of the Trust
The Canalside Heritage Centre Charitable Trust was first established with the aim of restoring the buildings which were once owned by the Trent Navigation Company. The four cottages were originally constructed around 1796 and provided offices and homes for canal workers. Indeed, they were still family homes until the 1990s. By this time, they had fallen into disrepair, and they required extensive renovation work before they could be extended and opened up to the public. They now form part of a vibrant community space which supports the current needs of the people of the area. The Centre is home to many community groups including a weekly Patchwork Group, and a Craft, Knit and Natter Group. These groups have brought new visitors to the Centre and have strengthened connections within the locality.
The Centre situated on the Beeston Canal with Beeston Lock to right out of picture
Many visitors remark on how tranquil the area surrounding the Centre feels. As you make your way through the nearby streets of residential housing, you would be easily forgiven for thinking you had stumbled through time. There’s something wonderfully timeless about the waterways surrounding Beeston. Walking along the canal today, you are close to nature and an important part of the area’s industrial heritage.
The location is part of the Centre’s charm and key to its history. The Centre is located within an area of Beeston known as the Rylands, the building is sandwiched between the River Trent and Beeston Lock. Beeston Lock is part of the Nottingham and Beeston Canal which opened in 1796. It connected the collieries at Wollaton and Bilborough to Langley Mill, and from there to the Cromford Canal. Beeston Lock allowed boaters to bypass unnavigable parts of the River Trent and it still used today for this purpose. You’ll still see narrow boats making their way through the lock during the summer and autumn.
Unlocking the story
The history of the site is key to unlocking the Centre’s future. Previous research showed visitors perceived the Centre as being a great café with a beautiful garden. Whilst we are lucky enough to have these assets, we deliver so much more than this.
When I arrived in October 2025 the team at the Canalside Heritage Centre were just concluding a four-year infrastructure project which was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project has supported several initiatives which strengthened engagement with the local community and established links with different audiences. At the heart of the project was a desire to connect our visitors to the history of the site. Research showed that 17% of visitors knew nothing about the history of the site and the waterways, while 69% knew a little. This was something the team wanted to address to ensure the story of the waterways and history of the site was kept alive.
Downstairs at Lock cottage
The project provided funding for the development of new engagement opportunities which focus on the history of the site and the waterways. The funding supported the creation of a new lock cottage visitor experience. Here visitors can step back in time and experience how a family would have lived during the 1840s. Visitors can immerse themselves in the sights, smells and sounds of a Victorian working family’s home. I’m keen to expand on this multi-sensory approach through the provision of hands-on activities which bring the history of the family to life.
Through research the team were able to trace the various inhabitants of the cottages back to the family who were living there when the first National Census took place in 1841. The Rice family was in residence at this time. Martha Rice and her children relied on the waterways for their income as her son was a boatman. We know that later inhabitants worked as lace menders and in traditional crafts such as rag rug making and patchwork, all forming part of everyday life. We want to provide opportunities for visitors to get hands-on with some of these traditional crafts. But also expect to see opportunities for washing clothes in a dolly tub, kneading dough, and peg doll making! We want to bring the Lock Cottage to life again through hands-on experiences.
We are looking to recruit a team of Heritage Engagement volunteers to develop and deliver hands-on activities and interpret the history of the site for our visitors. These volunteers will be integral to the future of the Canalside Heritage Centre as we move forward with a renewed focus on history.
Caring for the past
As well as being custodians of the history of the site, we are responsible for the management and care of a small collection of artefacts. These objects reflect the history of the site and the local area. We want to find ways of sharing these more widely with our visitors.
The Rylands Mission Hall banner
One of these objects is the Rylands Mission Hall banner, which was once held during processions in the 1920s. The story of this banner will feature prominently in an exhibition later in the year.
The team of Heritage Engagement Volunteers will play an active part in caring for the artefacts and sharing them with visitors. We want to open dialogue and create social connections through the stories these objects hold. Museum objects are powerful; they can unlock stories and forge connections through shared histories. It is important to capture these stories before they are potentially lost to time.
Our approach to community engagement and event programming will have the history of the site and artefacts at their heart. I’m keen to work with local community groups to co-curate exhibitions and events. These will enable local people to connect with the history of the local area and the Canalside Heritage Centre. It is important that we provide opportunities for the community to shape the experiences we create. Different perspectives and lived experiences enrich the stories we tell.
There are so many opportunities to enhance the visitor experience at Canalside Heritage Centre. We have lots of exciting plans for the year ahead, but we can’t do this alone. We are looking to work with the local community, groups and associations. If anyone would like to collaborate with us, they can get in touch with us via our email address info@canalsideheritagecentre.org.uk . Thank you.
Views of the centre's garden and Beeston weir
Emily White
Emily White started in her role as Heritage Centre Manager at the Canalside Heritage Centre in October 2025.
She began her career working for the National Trust at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire and the D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum at Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. She gained much additional experience in a variety of museum voluntary roles before undertaking her MA in Museum Studies at University of Leicester. Since then, she has worked continuously within the museum and heritage sector and for the last 11 years at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust where she managed Anne Hathaway’s Cottage before moving into the role of Curator.
She is passionate about caring for museum objects and creating shared experiences which bring the history of a site and collection to life. Links:
A place where heritage and the community come together. The Centre is open 7 days a week 9.30am - 4.00pm.
How to get there: A 10 minute walk from Beeston train station, it sits along 'The Big Track', a scenic ten-mile route for cyclists, walkers and runners, stretching from central Nottingham to Trent Bridge and Beeston Lock. The No 18 buses stop close by too. There are places to park your car along Canalside and adjacent roads but please be respectful of neighbours when parking.
This article is published by Marysia Zipser, Founder, ACT Ambassador & Keynote Speaker, Beeston, Nottingham. https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/ https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog
All our stories since 2017 are here https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog so please dip into them anytime.
Please feel free to write your feedback, remarks/reactions to Emily in the Comments box below, to which she will respond, and to share/forward this article/blog link via email to friends, colleagues and to socials as you wish. Thank you.
- marysia
- Apr 1
- 5 min read
By Marianne Coxon 2nd April 2026
Photography by Janine Moore
It was one of those warm soft days we often enjoy in early September when I visited Beauvale Priory buried deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside. It was a place that was often talked of with fondness by my long passed mother-in-law May, My husband was also keen to visit as he too was curious about Beauvale so we drove there to see for ourselves. We were not disappointed. The sun was warm, the sky blue and cloudless and the gentle light showed off the wonderful hues of the surroundings. It was a place of peace, yet it was also tinged with a remote but definite feeling of deep loss and sadness. The few remains of the priory that had once resided in the landscape resembled jagged teeth in an old broken jaw. Yet modern life was now a new and vivid part of this idyll not to be ignored. .
We entered the gate via a country lane and were greeted by quacking ducks waddling across to us from a small stream and wandering around other visitors vying for attention. There were families seated on picnic tables and a pleasant tea room busy with chattering visitors that sold tasty food and drinks. After our meal I left my husband to his musings and walked up to the ruins strolling amongst them drinking in the atmosphere.
History of Beauvale Priory
The word Beauvale means beautiful valley and a Carthusian priory was founded here by Nicholas de Cantelupe in 1343 during the reign of Edward III. He was a local landowner, soldier and statesman, lord of Greasley and Ilkeston and descended from a powerful family who had served the monarchy and church since the time of King John. He resided at Greasley Manor. Later in his life Nicholas obtained the Crown’s permission to fortify the manor and renamed it Greasley Castle.
According to a publication called Green’s short history page 292, the Cantalupe males were such fearsome warriors that stone balls used in siege warfare were named after the family. Henry V paid £66.00 a quantity of such stones, presumably for his one of his campaigns.
A man determined to pave his way to heaven with good deeds towards the church, de Cantelupe gave the land to the Carthusians so that a religious house could be established on his land. The order was very strict, and the monks spent their lives in solitude, prayer and silence. Their habits were white and covered by a black plaited cloak.
Twelve monks and one prior resided at Beauvale and they were supported by rents from properties worth £10.00 in nearby Selston and Greasley. This income was vastly increased in the following years by Nicholas. Whilst the monks’ lives were shaped by strict rules - though notably less so than the Benedictine order which was similar - the Carthusians developed a reputation for industriousness, particularly with their skill at cultivation of land that they held.
The Carthusian order was never truly successful in Britain unlike its fellow houses in Europe. Prior to the Reformation, only ten Carthusian monasteries were established in Britain, amongst them, Perth Charterhouse the only one in Scotland, and of the nine in England, Mount Grace Priory in Yorkshire,
Beauvale Priory in Nottinghamshire and the London Charterhouse are perhaps the best known. The first established in England was Witham Friary at Somerset and was founded by Henry II in 1181 as penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, Hugh of Lincoln was its first prior. Beauvale Priory was the third to be established in England. The order itself was founded by Bruno of Cologne at Chartreuse in France in 1084.
Destruction of Beauvale Priory
Nicholas de Cantelupe died in 1355/6 after a full and active life and was buried in Lincoln Cathedral. Life at Beauvale Priory continued peacefully for the brethren for around the next 280 years or so until their world was turned upside down by Henry VIII’s Reformation and desire to establish himself as the head of the Church in England instead of the Pope in Rome.
Great change came to peaceful Beauvale and London Charterhouse in 1534. Henry VIII was set on a path of complete separation from the Church of Rome and was determined to crush any opposition to his policies.
John Houghton, a former University of Cambridge scholar, was the prior of London Charterhouse and previous prior of Beauvale. He was suspected of encouraging his fellow Carthusians to remain faithful to the Papal supremacy and reject Henry VIII’s claim to be Head of the Church in England and was sent to the Tower but later released. Eventually John Houghton along with Robert Lawrence who succeeded Houghton as prior of Beauvale, and Augustine Webster prior of Axholme were interviewed by Thomas Cromwell.
The priors refused to take the Oath of Supremacy at interview and were imprisoned, tried and found guilty of Treason. They were all executed by hanging, drawing and quartering at Tyburn on 4th May 1535 after each being dragged through the streets of London on hurdles. The use of hurdles was to cause maximum discomfort to the prisoners' backs, necks and heads and to degrade them in front of the baying crowds. Houghton was slaughtered first. They became known as the Carthusian Martyrs having been beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886. Priors Houghton and Lawrence were then canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Thomas Woodcock was the last prior at Beauvale and he and his brother monks surrendered the house and its contents to the Royal Commissioners in 1539 although other sources claim the date to be 1540. Thomas Woodcock and a number of his monks were awarded pensions. The site itself was granted to Sir William Hussy.
In the years that followed under Queen Mary’s reign, the remaining Carthusians went to Sheen Priory but upon Elizabeth’s accession left for the continent.
One Carthusian who had served at Beauvale was amongst those that left England and died on 6th September 1575. His name was Nicholas Dugmer. It’s just my fancy, but I wonder if he was one of the lost spirits that inhabits the ruins of a modest priory in a once peaceful and secluded valley.
In more modern times the ruins of Beauvale Priory has been valued for its timeless peace and tranquility. Author D.H. Lawrence used the location as the setting for one of his short stories a ‘Fragment of Stained Glass’
It was a sad sight to see the remains of a once holy place, the night stairs the monks descended to say the Night Office, the broken remains of windows and walls and feeling the gentle breeze soft on my skin, but mostly the sight of the stone epitaph to two men murdered on 4th May 1535.
Marianne Coxon
Further reading by the same author: https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/post/five-noble-women
Sources:
Cornelius Brown Nottshistory.org.uk
Inquisitiones Post Mortem, temp. Henry III undated.
Gasquet’s Henry VII and the English Monasteries
Useful Links:
This article is published by Marysia Zipser, Founder, Ambassador of Art Culture Tourism & Keynote Speaker, Beeston, Nottingham. https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/ https://www.artculturetourism.co.uk/blog E: artculturetourism@gmail.com
Please feel free to write your feedback, remarks/reactions to Marianne in the Comments box below, to which she will respond, and to share/forward this article/blog link via email to friends, colleagues and to socials as you wish. Thank you.