Netley Abbey
Local highlightA roofless Cistercian church and cloister beside Southampton Water, left to ivy and admired for centuries as a Romantic ruin
Open to visitorsan English Heritage site — check opening times and admission before you go
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
On a quiet day it is easy to see why Georgian day-trippers made a habit of Netley — a big roofless church and its ranges of buildings standing open to the sky in trees just back from Southampton Water. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a Cistercian house, the order of monks who settled in out-of-the-way country to live simply, and its first monks came from nearby Beaulieu. When Henry VIII closed the monasteries in the 1530s, the buildings passed to Sir William Paulet, who converted them into a Tudor mansion. That house was later abandoned, and by the 1700s the overgrown shell had become a spot people came to picnic, sketch and write poems about; Jane Austen, then living in Southampton, is said to have been among them. Enough of the church, cloister and chapter house (the room where monks met for daily business) survives to read the whole plan. English Heritage looks after the ruin now, and it is free to wander. The Solent Way coast path passes the gate, and Netley Castle, one of Henry VIII’s small coastal forts, is a short walk southwest.
More at the National Heritage List entry
