Godstow

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The ruined Godstow Abbey.

Godstow (Oxfordshire, England) is to the west of the River Thames opposite Lower Wolvercote north of Port Meadow at Oxford. It is now mainly known for the ruined Godstow Abbey (also known as Godstow Nunnery).

1 The Abbey
2 Rosamund Clifford - "Fair Rosamund"
3 The Abbey after the dissolution
4 References
5 External links

[edit] The Abbey

Godstow abbey was built on what was then an island between streams running into the river Thames. The site was given to the foundress sometime around 1133 by John of St. John; with a further gift of land from him, the site was later enlarged in 1139.

The abbey was again enlarged between 1176 and 1188 when Henry II gave the establishment:

£258 - which included £100 for the church,
40,000 shingles,
4,000 laths, and
Much timber.

This endowment is no doubt due to the site being the burial place of his mistress Rosamund Clifford.

The Abbey precincts were entered from the Wolvercote-Wytham road, which ran through the outer court. Here there was a two-storey main gatehouse which had one large gate for carts and a second smaller one beside it for foot traffic.

The site consisted of:

An outer court containing a range of buildings.
St. Thomas's chapel which appears to have been used a church by the Abbey's servants
Lodging for a priest.
A guest house.
A Nunnery.
The Abbey church which contained cloisters along with associated buildings

[edit] Rosamund Clifford - "Fair Rosamund"

The abbey became the final burial place of the famed beauty Rosamund Clifford (died circa 1176), a longtime mistress of Henry II.

Henry's liaison with Rosamund became public knowledge in 1174; it ended when she retired to the nunnery at Godstow in 1176, shortly before her death.

Henry and the Clifford family paid for her tomb at Godstow in the choir of the convent's church and an endowment for it to be tended by the nuns. It became a popular local shrine until 1191, two years after Henry's death. Hugh of Lincoln, Bishop of Lincoln, while visiting Godstow, noticed Rosamund's tomb right in front of the high altar. The tomb was laden with flowers and candles, demonstrating that the local people were still praying there. Calling Rosamund a harlot, the bishop ordered her remains removed from the church. This was part of the long-term campaign by the Roman Catholic Church to eradicate earlier Norse and Anglo-Saxon traditions of marriage amongst the nobility. Her tomb was moved outside of the abbey church itself to the cemetery at the nuns' chapter house next to it, where it could still be visited until it was destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII of England.

[edit] The Abbey after the dissolution

The abbey was converted into Godstow House by George Owen. It was occupied by his family until 1645, when the building was badly damaged in the Civil War. After this damage, the building fell into disrepair and was used by the locals as a source of stone for their buildings.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the ruined abbey was used for collecting livestock during the annual rounding up of animals on Port Meadow.

In Victorian times, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) brought Alice Liddell (aka Alice in Wonderland) and her sisters, Edith and Lorina, for river trips and picnics at Godstow.

The Trout public house.

Also alongside the Thames at Lower Wolvercote and Godstow is The Trout, a well-known public house, close to Godstow Bridge. The bridge was built in 1792.

[edit] References

'Wolvercote: Site and remains of Godstow abbey', A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 12: Wootton Hundred (South) including Woodstock (1990), pp. 311–13. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=1485. Date accessed: 11 January 2006.