Dr Michael Rhodes - Devons Torre Abbey: Faith, Politics and Grand Designs

1. The Torre Abbey estate, from a plan of 1808. (Cary Estate Papers, Kitsons Solicitors)

I should like to thank the following for helping with this book: Dr John Jenkins of Oxford and York Universities for his invariably excellent advice and for allowing me to refer to his undergraduate thesis on Torre Abbey; David Wopling for recounting his experiences as hall-keeper and custodian; Hal and Wendy Cary for allowing access to the Cary family papers and for making long-term loans to Torre Abbey of some of its former contents; Sue Cheriton of Torbay Council for allowing me to undertake preparatory work for this book while employed by the council and for arranging its publication with The History Press; and my wife Patricia for her patient support and constant encouragement.

I am grateful to the following for making invaluable comments on drafts of the text: Hal Bishop of Torbay Council; Hugh Meller; Sister Benignus OBrien; Jane Palmer of Torbay Council; Leslie Retallick; Paul Richold of Architecton; the late Malcolm Upham and Father John Smethurst. I am indebted to Clare Jones for helpful information about aspects of Catholic practice, to Dr Anita Travers for translating various documents from the original Latin, and to Joseph Harvey, of Torre Abbey, for all manner of practical help.

My thanks are due to Gordon Oliver, Elected Mayor of Torbay, for very kindly agreeing to write the foreword; to Beth Hill of Torbay Council for preparing a map; and to Mark Pool of Torquay Central Library for locating various publications and photographs.

I am grateful to the following for allowing me to publish photographs, plans and diagrams: Rick Belcher and the Norbertines of St Michaels Abbey, Silverado, California; Sister Benignus OBrien, archivist to the Catholic Diocese of Plymouth; Antony Gormley, sculptor; The British Library Board; Hal Cary; Richard Clover, Senior Layclerk of Ely Cathedral; Devon Heritage Services; the Guildhall Art Library, London; Peter and Rosalyn Lorimer of Pighill Heritage Graphics; Bob Newman and Jane Holdsworth; Matthew Pattison; Museum of London Archaeology; The National Archives; the Norris Museum, St Ives, Cambridgeshire; Richard Fowler Associates; the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter; the Royal Armouries; Torbay Council; Torquay Museum; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Unless otherwise stated, the photographs were taken by the writer.

Torre Abbey excites the eyes, curiosity, intellect and imagination of everyone who enters its gates especially if they have an interest in art, architecture and the history of this area. Its a place I know well, and love, and regularly use and visit.

Enjoying a commanding view of Tor Bay, Torre Abbey has been home to our leading local residents for 800 years. In medieval times, the Abbot of Torre controlled and developed large swathes of Devon. After the canons were expelled in 1539, the abbey became the seat of the Ridgeway and Cary families, who owned the land upon which present-day Torquay was built and influenced its development.

The abbey has always been renowned for hospitality. Medieval travellers called here for free bed and board, and during the Napoleonic wars, the Cary family held open house for officers of the Channel Fleet including Britains great national heroes, Earl St Vincent and Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson. Since 1930, when it became our local art gallery, Torre Abbey has incorporated a Mayors Parlour, where distinguished visitors and voluntary workers are welcomed and thanked on behalf of our local residents.

Torre Abbeys pivotal role in the religious life of this area must never been forgotten. It was built for a community of canons, who followed a life of prayer and service. After the Cary family made it their home in 1662, they employed a Roman Catholic priest and built a secret chapel both of which were illegal at a time when Catholicism was suppressed. During the 1700s, the Catholic community that looked to Torre Abbey for support was the largest in Devon.

Like all historic buildings, every fifty years or so, Torre Abbey has needed repair and modernisation. In 1997, Torbay Council inaugurated the Torre Abbey Project to restore the abbey and to adapt it for the twenty-first century. Thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage and others, Torre Abbey now has new museum displays and access for wheelchair users, as well as a new education suite, ticket office and caf.

As the restoration of Torre Abbey is still not complete, I invite you to join me in becoming a member of the Friends of Torre Abbey who raise funds to support the abbey and to conserve and enhance its collections. Please ask at the abbey for further information.

The Torre Abbey Project has led to many remarkable discoveries and a programme of research into the abbeys history and archaeology. Drawing on this wealth of new information, this book by the abbeys former curator, Dr Michael Rhodes, is the first complete and authoritative account of Torre Abbeys extraordinary history.

Gordon Oliver, 2015

Elected Mayor and Leader of Torbay Council

The idea for this book arose from a conversation with a marketing professional, who called at Torre Abbey to advise us on its advertising literature. If you had to name just one thing that makes Torre Abbey special, he asked, what would that one thing be? Thats easy, I answered. Eight hundred years of Catholic history. Now try selling that!

Our adviser was, of course, correct to suggest it is easier to promote an attraction that is built around a single powerful idea. Before the recent restoration works, visitors were invariably delighted by the art collections, which include nationally important nineteenth-century works by John Martin, William Holman Hunt and Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. The house they found confusing. The ruins to the rear showed it had begun as a monastery, while the eighteenth-century family chapel revealed that the Carys were Roman Catholics. But the displays did not tell the story of the house, so visitors left with no idea of its archaeological and architectural importance, or the extraordinary scope of its history.

That the story of Catholicism in England might provide a compelling, unifying framework for a new interpretation of Torre Abbey was then only a hunch. To develop the idea would require some serious research. Could it really provide a cohesive story, I wondered? I wrote this book to find out.

2. Heraldic shield bearing the arms of Torre Abbey from the medieval abbey church. (Bob Newman and Jane Holdsworth,
Torre Abbey collection)

The strength of the tale that emerged took me by surprise. From the end of the Third Crusade in 1192 to the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850, every significant event that affected English Catholics was illuminated or reflected by events at Torre Abbey. Even its non-Catholic owners became embroiled in events at the core of the Catholic story: the Western Rebellion of 1549, when Catholics rebelled at the imposition of a reformed English prayer book; the failed Spanish Armada of 1588; and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, to name just a few. In all likelihood, no other individual house in the country could be used to tell the story of English Catholics so well.

Because our British national identity has been shaped by our often fraught relations with the nations of Catholic Europe, the story of Torre Abbey remains relevant and important not just to Catholics, but to everyone with an interest in history. As well as providing a framework for this book, it forms the basis of Torre Abbeys new interpretative displays.