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Bordesley monks
reach Redditch
by Ralph Richardson
THE Domesday Book tells us that there
were small numbers of people living in
Ipsley and Tardebigge, but there is no
sign of anyone in the area of central
Redditch before 1138. This part of
Worcestershire was still densely wooded
and its soil a heavy clay which was
frequently waterlogged.
There was a very strong religious revival
throughout Europe in the 12th Century.
One major effect was the founding of a
new order of monks in Citeaux, in
Burgundy, France. These monks were
called Cistercians. One of their founders
was the Englishman Stephen Harding. It
is possible that the parish church of
Redditch, St Stephen’s, was named after
him.
Groups of 12 monks and an abbot were
sent out from Citeaux. They founded a
new abbey and, as soon as they had a
surplus of monks, the next group of 13
were sent out. The first company
reached England in 1128 and settled in
Waverley in Surrey. Five years later
Waverley founded Garendon Abbey in
Leicestershire and in 1138 thirteen
monks from there arrived at Bordesley.
They needed permission to settle and to
build. They also needed a sponsor with
money and spare land. Bordesley was
part of the royal manor of Tardebigge.
The lady of the manor was Queen
Matilda, wife to King Stephen. It looks as
if she was happy to give the monks what
they wanted - after all, nobody lived
down by the river. Unfortunately Queen
Matilda was involved in her husband’s
never ending civil wars and it seems from
the Foundation Charter that the abbey
was endowed by another Matilda, the
daughter of Henry 1. She was the other
protagonist in the English Civil War.
The site for the monastery proved ideal.
Nobody lived there, except possibly at a
hamlet called Osmerley. It was rapidly
demolished. Elaborate drainage
schemes were begun. A stone church
and necessary buildings were rapidly
constructed. Fish pools were dug. The
River Arrow was straightened. Huge
ponds to provide water power for
industrial uses were constructed. One
had a water-driven trip hammer capable
of forging iron and possibly steel.
Weapons were made there – all years
before the Industrial Revolution.
Local landowners gave Bordesley Abbey
large estates. This eased their passage to
Heaven, or so they thought. Supplies of
food and timber came from Hewell
Grange – a grange being an outlying
farm of a Cistercian Abbey. Bordesley
had granges in the Cotswolds from
which it obtained a huge supply of wool.
It is possible
that the
bridge over
the Avon at
Bidford was
built from the
wealth of
Bordesley to
improve
access to and from its Cotswolds
estates. By 1536 Bordesley was the fifth
wealthiest Cistercian abbey in England.
Not bad for that empty, waterlogged
piece of land.
The abbey was closed down 400 years
after it was founded. King Henry VIII, as
so often, was short of money. He
therefore decided to close all abbeys
and confiscate all their estates. They
were worth about one third of the
nation’s wealth and Henry coveted this.
A way of life which, in some places, had
lasted nearly 1000 years, was
abandoned forever.
The Bordesley Abbey processional cross
survives today at Mount Carmel Roman
Catholic Church. Four of its library books
are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Two
of its mass vestments are kept at
Downside Abbey near Bath. There is a
tombstone to an Abbot of Bordesley,
with his picture on it, at Hinton on the
Green, south of Evesham.
24 Redditch matters Redditch Borough Council