109-455: The Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum also known as Woodhall Spa. (Cottage Museum, Woodall Spa,) is a community museum managed by volunteers, and located on Iddesleigh Road, Woodhall Spa , Lincolnshire , England. The museum documents the history of Woodhall Spa's development as a 19th-century spa town designed by Richard Adolphus Came . The museum was inaugurated in 1987 and consists of a bungalow constructed of corrugated galvanised iron laid on
218-475: A cricket ground , which is home to Woodhall Spa Cricket Club. On 22 December 2010, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the half-hour-long Australian Wanted in Woodhall Spa , presented by Chris Ledgard and detailing overseas players playing for English amateur cricket clubs. In December 2010, East Lindsey Council sold Jubilee Park to the Woodhall Spa residents for £1. It is currently undergoing renovations. Jubilee Park
327-536: A papal bull authorising some limited reforms in the English Church as early as 1518, but reformers (both conservative and radical) had become increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress. In November 1529, Parliament passed Acts reforming apparent abuses in the English Church. They set a cap on fees, both for the probate of wills and mortuary expenses for burial in hallowed ground; tightened regulations covering rights of sanctuary for criminals; and reduced to two
436-463: A shaft over 1,000 feet deep, the enterprise was abandoned on account of the now rising spring . The spring flows daily through soft spongy rock at a depth of 520 feet. About 1834, the then Lord of the Manor, Thomas Hotchkin, ascertained by analysis that the water was in fact valuable, being an iodine and bromine containing mineral spring . He spent nearly £30,000 sinking a well and erecting
545-508: A German air raid during World War II in August 1943, although part survived and became the Mall Hotel. The Petwood Hotel is so called because it was originally built at the turn of the 20th century as a house for Grace, Lady Weigall, who had it constructed in her favourite wood, her "pet wood". Lady Weigall turned her former home into a hotel in 1933. The heyday of Woodhall Spa was recorded by
654-490: A black Labrador dog; the photo-caption asks if this "mysterious" animal was Guy Gibson's dog , which was run over and killed shortly before Gibson departed to bomb German dams. Most of the Royal Hydro Hotel and Winter Gardens was destroyed by a German parachute mine which fell on 17 August 1943, although part of it did survive and became the Mall Hotel. Two civilians were killed. The Spa Baths finally closed when
763-508: A different nature from those taking place in Germany, Bohemia , France, Scotland and Geneva . Across much of continental Europe, the seizure of monastic property was associated with mass discontent among the common people and the lower levels of clergy and civil society against powerful and wealthy ecclesiastical institutions. Such popular hostility against the church was rare in England before 1558;
872-460: A field system south of the village and east of Ostler's Plantation. A Sestertius of Marcus Aurelius was found along Horncastle Road. Kirkstead Abbey was founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1139 by Hugh Brito, Lord of Tattershall and was originally colonised by an abbot and twelve monks from Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire . The abbey remained in existence until 1537, when it was dissolved ;
981-774: A local photographer, John Wield, and many of his photographs are displayed in the Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum , which was his home. Dissolution of the Monasteries The dissolution of the monasteries , occasionally referred to as the suppression of the monasteries , was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541, by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries , priories , convents , and friaries in England, Wales , and Ireland ; seized their wealth; disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions. Though
1090-464: A mile to the west of the grounds, close to the present Kinema, Thomas Hotchkin had built a spa bath in the late 1830s, having by chance discovered the healing properties of the iodine-rich water in a disused mine shaft on his land. In 1842 White's Directory describes Woodhall Spa as "a modern watering place … with just over 300 souls" and Thomas Hotchkin as living in Woodhall Lodge, "a neat mansion near
1199-568: A nature reserve. To the east of the village between Horncastle Road and Kirkby Lane lie Kirkby and Roughton Moors. Once open heathland, these are now almost all wooded, with parts owned by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and managed as two nature reserves: Kirkby Moor Nature Reserve and Roughton Moor Wood Nature Reserve . Both are open to the public and can be accessed from either Kirkby Lane, Wellsyke Lane or Horncastle Road. There are more areas of woodland towards Horncastle to
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#17328701598681308-456: A quarter of the nation's landed wealth. An English medieval proverb said that if the abbot of Glastonbury married the abbess of Shaftesbury , their heir would have more land than the king of England. 200 more houses of friars in England and Wales constituted a second distinct wave of monastic zeal in the 13th century. Friaries , for the most part, were concentrated in urban areas. Unlike monasteries, friaries had no income-bearing endowments;
1417-455: A royal servant and counsellor, in the course of which his correspondence included strong condemnations of the idleness and vice in monastic life, alongside his equally vituperative attacks on Luther. Henry himself corresponded continually with Erasmus, prompting him to be more explicit in his public rejection of the key tenets of Lutheranism and offering him church preferment should he wish to return to England. On famously failing to receive from
1526-464: A timber frame. The building was shipped to Woodhall Spa as a flat pack. The cottage, erected in 1887, was chosen from the models available in the catalogue of Boulton & Paul Ltd , a leading manufacturer of corrugated iron buildings, which were in vogue in the era. An unusual example of such a cottage is that it's still standing in well-preserved condition. The cottage was built by John and Mary Wield, employees of Woodhull Spa. The Wields were in
1635-472: A treatise which declared that the monastic life had no scriptural basis, was pointless and also actively immoral, incompatible with the true spirit of Christianity. Luther also declared that monastic vows were meaningless and that no one should feel bound by them. Luther, a one-time Augustinian friar , found some comfort when these views had a dramatic effect: a special meeting of the German province of his order held
1744-551: A variety of other complaints, and it can be obtained in a bottled form direct from the Spa or through any chemist. The Victoria Hotel burned down on Easter Day , 4 April 1920, when an electrical fault in the boiler room spread to the linen room above. In 1846 the Great Northern Railway company purchased the land to build a rail link from Peterborough to Lincoln via Boston and Woodhall Junction . Work commenced in 1847 and
1853-553: Is a former spa town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire , England, on the southern edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds , 6 miles (10 km) south-west of Horncastle , 23 miles (37 km) west of Skegness , 15 miles (24 km) east-south-east of Lincoln and 17 miles (27 km) north-west of Boston . It is noted for its mineral springs , historic cinema and its Second World War association with
1962-546: Is next to a caravan park of the same name. The Pinewoods is a 19 acres (7.7 ha) woodland at the centre of the village, owned by the Woodland Trust . It is made up of mature oak, Scots pine, beech and birch. Originally scrub land, later becoming part of the grounds of the Victoria Hotel, it attracts visitors, particularly in the spring and autumn. Ostler's Plantation is a Forestry Commission working woodland along
2071-540: The Avignon Papacy . Their suppression was supported by the rival Roman Popes , conditional on all confiscated monastic property being redirected into other religious uses. The king's officers first sequestrated the assets of the alien priories in 1295–1303 under Edward I , and the pattern repeated for long periods over the course of the 14th century, most particularly in the reign of Edward III . Alien priories with functioning communities were forced to pay large sums to
2180-457: The Church of Rome and had ridiculed such monastic practices as repetitive formal religion, superstitious pilgrimages for the veneration of relics, and the accumulation of monastic wealth. Henry appears to have shared these views, never having endowed a religious house and only once having undertaken a religious pilgrimage, to Walsingham in 1511. From 1518, Thomas More was increasingly influential as
2289-609: The First Suppression Act in 1535 and the Second Suppression Act in 1539. While Thomas Cromwell , vicar-general and vicegerent of England, is often considered the leader of the dissolution, he merely oversaw the project—he had hoped for reform, not eliminating the practice. The dissolution project was created by England's Lord Chancellor, Thomas Audley , and Court of Augmentations head, Richard Rich . Historian George W. Bernard argues that: The dissolution of
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#17328701598682398-557: The RAF 617 Squadron , commonly referred to as 'The Dambusters'. Much of the village's Victorian elegance remains, with large parts of the centre being designated as a conservation area since January 1991. A mesolithic flint blade and a neolithic stone axe have been found in Woodhall. From the Bronze Age there is a dagger and a barrow. Evidence exists of Roman activity in the area with
2507-499: The RAF and Pinewoods was used to hide military equipment, especially on its northern perimeter. RAF Woodhall Spa airfield was built to the south of the village in the parish of Tattershall Thorpe . It closed for operational purposes in 1964, although it is still owned by the Ministry of Defence , used mainly for jet engine maintenance and testing and is operated as a satellite unit of nearby RAF Coningsby . A memorial wall depicting
2616-466: The Reformation in England and Ireland was directed from the king and high society. These changes were initially met with popular suspicion; on some occasions and in particular localities, there was active resistance to the royal programme. Dissatisfaction with regular religious life, and with the gross extent of monastic wealth, was near universal amongst late medieval secular and ecclesiastical rulers in
2725-608: The 11th and 12th centuries. Few had been founded later than the end of the 13th century; the youngest was the Bridgettine nunnery of Syon Abbey , founded in 1415. Typically, 11th and 12th-century founders endowed monastic houses with revenue from landed estates and tithes appropriated from parish churches under the founder's patronage. As a consequence, religious houses in the 16th century controlled appointment to about two-fifths of all parish benefices in England, disposed of about half of all ecclesiastical income, and owned around
2834-586: The 1530s corresponded little with the movement by Protestant Reformers, and encountered much popular hostility when they did. In 1536, Convocation adopted and Parliament enacted the Ten Articles , containing some terminology and ideas drawn from Luther and Melanchthon ; but any momentum towards Protestantism stalled when Henry VIII expressed his support for the Six Articles of 1539 , which remained in effect until after his death. Cardinal Wolsey had obtained
2943-489: The 16th century, monasticism had almost entirely disappeared from those European states whose rulers had adopted Lutheran or Reformed confessions of faith (Ireland being the only major exception). They continued in states that remained Catholic, and new community orders such as the Jesuits and Capuchins emerged alongside the older orders. The religious and political changes in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI were of
3052-568: The 1920s. Womersley House was built by the Hotchkin family, which was instrumental in the development of the adjoining Hotchkin Golf Course—now the headquarters of the English Golf Union , who bought the course in 1995 to set up a National Golf Centre . A second course, "The Bracken", opened for play in 1998 alongside the original course, now named "the Hotchkin". The St Andrews Trophy
3161-528: The 3rd green of the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa Golf Club . It is a notable feature of the course and has been adopted as the emblem of the golf club. The building and grounds of Woodhall Spa Manor are intrinsically linked to the development of the village from its formative years. The earliest references to this site show that a small hunting lodge was present here in the late 18th century. The inner library room still retains original Jacobean carving over
3270-542: The Benedictine St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge to found Jesus College, Cambridge (1496), and William Waynflete , Bishop of Winchester acquiring Selborne Priory in Hampshire in 1484 for Magdalen College, Oxford . In the following century, Lady Margaret Beaufort obtained the property of Creake Abbey (whose religious had all died of sweating sickness in 1506) to fund her works at Oxford and Cambridge. She
3379-715: The Crown; some were kept, some were given or sold to Henry's supporters, others were assigned to his new monasteries of Syon Abbey and the Carthusians at Sheen Priory ; others were used for educational purposes. All these suppressions enjoyed papal approval but successive 15th-century popes continued to press for assurances that the confiscated monastic income would revert to religious uses. The medieval understanding of religious houses as institutions associated monasteries and nunneries with their property: their endowments of land and income, and not their current personnel of monks and nuns. If
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3488-626: The Diet allowing him to confiscate any monastic lands he deemed necessary to increase royal revenues, and to allow the return of donated properties to the descendants of the donors. By the following Reduction of Gustav I of Sweden , Gustav gained large estates, as well as loyal supporters among the nobility who reclaimed donations given by their families to the convents. The Swedish monasteries and convents were simultaneously deprived of their livelihoods. They were banned from accepting new novices, and forbidden to prevent their existing members from leaving. However,
3597-577: The Divine Office. Even in houses with adequate numbers, the regular obligations of communal eating and shared living had not been fully enforced for centuries, as communities tended to sub-divide into a number of distinct familiae . In most larger houses, the full observance of the Canonical Hours had become the task of a sub-group of 'Cloister Monks', such that the majority of inhabitants were freed to conduct their business and live much of their lives in
3706-606: The King and reject papal authority. Cromwell delegated his visitation authority to hand-picked commissioners, chiefly Richard Layton, Thomas Legh, John ap Rice and John Tregonwell , for the purposes of ascertaining the quality of religious life being maintained in religious houses, of assessing the prevalence of 'superstitious' religious observances such as the veneration of relics , and for inquiring into evidence of moral laxity (especially sexual). The chosen commissioners were mostly secular clergy, and appear to have been Erasmian, doubtful of
3815-514: The King as founder for assistance, only to find themselves dissolved arbitrarily. Rather than risk empanelling a jury, and with papal participation no longer being welcome, the Lord Chancellor , Thomas Audley , recommended that dissolution should be legalised retrospectively through a special act of Parliament. In 1521, Martin Luther had published De votis monasticis ( On the monastic vows ),
3924-722: The King. By the Submission of the Clergy , the English clergy and religious orders subscribed to the proposition that the King was, and had always been, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. Consequently, in Henry's view, any act of monastic resistance to royal authority would not only be treasonable, but also a breach of the monastic vow of obedience . Under heavy threats, almost all religious houses joined
4033-460: The Latin West. Bernard says there was: widespread concern in the later 15th and early 16th centuries about the condition of the monasteries. A leading figure here is the scholar and theologian Desiderius Erasmus who satirized monasteries as lax, as comfortably worldly, as wasteful of scarce resources, and as superstitious; he also thought it would be better if monks were brought more directly under
4142-581: The Papal Curia ; and although such arrangements were nominally temporary, commendatory abbacies often continued long-term. Then, by the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, Pope Leo X granted to Francis I authority to nominate almost all abbots and conventual priors in France. Around 80 per cent of French abbacies came to be held in commendam , the commendators often being lay courtiers or royal servants; around half
4251-626: The Pope a declaration of nullity regarding his marriage, Henry had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church of England in February 1531, and instigated a programme of legislation to establish this Royal Supremacy in law. In April 1533, an Act in Restraint of Appeals eliminated the right of clergy to appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any matter. All ecclesiastical charges and levies that had previously been payable to Rome would now go to
4360-629: The Spa Baths, as well as building the Victoria Hotel. A description from 1919 of the therapeutic benefits patrons might expect to enjoy after 'taking the waters' ran as follows: The water is used both internally and externally and has been of the greatest efficacy in arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteo-arthritis, articular and muscular rheumatism , gout (especially of joints), neuritis, sciatica and nervous complaints, glandular swellings, catarrh, high arterial tensions, skin diseases, sterility, fibroid tumours and inflammatory diseases of women, as well as in
4469-536: The agreement of the papacy. Monastic wealth, regarded everywhere as excessive, offered a standing temptation for cash-strapped authorities. Almost all official action in the English dissolution was directed at the monasteries. The closing of the monasteries aroused popular opposition, but resistors became the targets of royal hostility. The surrender of the friaries, from an official perspective, arose almost as an afterthought, once it had been determined that all religious houses would have to go. In terms of popular esteem,
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4578-462: The authority of bishops. At that time, quite a few bishops across Europe had come to believe that resources expensively deployed on an unceasing round of services by men and women in theory set apart from the world [would] be better spent on endowing grammar schools and university colleges to train men who would then serve the laity as parish priests, and on reforming the antiquated structures of over-large dioceses such as that of Lincoln . Pastoral care
4687-539: The balance tilted the other way. Almost all monasteries supported themselves from their endowments; in late medieval terms 'they lived off their own'. Unless they were notably bad landlords, they tended to enjoy widespread local support; they also commonly appointed local notables to fee-bearing offices. The friars were by contrast much more likely to have been the objects of local hostility, especially since their practice of soliciting income through legacies appears to have been perceived as diminishing family inheritances. By
4796-508: The banks of the River Witham . Between Woodhall Spa and Lincoln it consists of a tarmacked path that runs along the route of the former railway line from Boston to Lincoln. It was built and financed by Sustrans , and was finally completed and opened in November 2008. It is open to all forms of non-motorised transport, forming part of NCN Route 1 . Named primarily after its route and former use,
4905-402: The bishop would seek to obtain papal approval for alternative use of the house's endowments in canon law . This, with royal agreement claiming 'foundership', would be presented to an 'empanelled jury' for consent to use of the property of the house in civil law. The royal transfer of alien monastic estates to educational foundations inspired bishops and, as the 15th century waned, this practice
5014-644: The breaching of the German dams in Operation Chastise , otherwise known as the "Dam Busters" raid, stands in the Royal Gardens (the site of the Royal Hydro Hotel) in the centre of the village. It is dedicated to the memory of those from 617 Squadron who were killed during the war. The memorial is the location of a local school choir photograph, published in Lincolnshire Life magazine, which included
5123-627: The business of providing rides in Bath chairs drawn by donkeys to carry visitors between the spa's health baths and hotels. John Wield created a photographic record of the then new Victorian spa community at Woodhall Spa. Today, his photographic collection forms the basis of the Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum collection. The bungalow was the home of the Wield family from 1887 to the 1960s. John Wield's collection of photographs and ephemera were offered in
5232-463: The early 1980s to the community of Woodhall Spa to put on public display. Not long after that, in 1985, John Wield's bungalow came on the market and, in 1986, a trust was formed to set up the Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum. The local tourist information centre is housed within the museum. In 2011, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant of £677,600 to be used to refurbish the building, update
5341-639: The early 1980s, thus formalising what was already a reality. The Kinema in the Woods is located at the centre of the Pinewoods, next to the now derelict Spa Baths and opposite the site of the former Victoria Hotel. Housed in a converted cricket pavilion, it opened in 1922 as one of the first cinemas in Britain. It is the last cinema in the country to employ back projection and also offers regular entertainment on an original Compton Kinestra 3 Manual / 9 Rank organ . The organ
5450-458: The end, Henry gave most of the money to supply the war. At the time of their suppression, only some English and Welsh religious houses could trace their origins to Anglo-Saxon or Celtic foundations before the Norman Conquest . The overwhelming majority of the 625 monastic communities dissolved by Henry VIII had developed in the wave of monastic enthusiasm that swept western Christendom in
5559-566: The entire ecclesiastical estate of England and Wales, including the monasteries (see Valor Ecclesiasticus ), for the purpose of assessing the Church's taxable value, through local commissioners who reported in May 1535. At the same time, Henry had Parliament authorise Cromwell to " visit " all the monasteries , including those like the Cistercians previously exempted from episcopal oversight by papal dispensation, to instruct them in their duty to obey
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#17328701598685668-451: The exhibits, and fund programs. The project reflected the need to remove several small, wooden outbuildings (an old donkey stable, workshop and photography studio) that had been damaged by arson. 53°09′13″N 0°12′41″W / 53.15348°N 0.21135°W / 53.15348; -0.21135 This Lincolnshire location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Woodhall Spa Woodhall Spa
5777-415: The fireplace and is believed to be the earliest remaining feature from the hunting lodge days. Woodhall Lodge or Wood Corner, as it was then known, became the property of one Thomas Hotchkin of Rutland, Lord of the Manor of Thimbleby and Woodhall . Hotchkin had inherited many manors throughout Rutland and Lincolnshire but Woodhall Lodge was his particular favourite and where he spent most of his time. Half
5886-404: The former RAF Woodhall Spa now managed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust . Much of the land on which the village is built was once extensive heathland with a light fluvial sandy soil. Well-preserved areas of heathland can be seen at Moor Farm Nature Reserve on Wellsyke Lane, where plants include tormentil , bell heather and climbing corydalis . The abundance of sand and gravel in
5995-536: The former monks and nuns were allowed to reside in the convent buildings for life on state allowance, and many communities survived the Reformation for decades. The last of them was Vreta Abbey , where the last nuns died in 1582, and Vadstena Abbey , from which the last nuns emigrated in 1595, about half a century after the Reduction. In Denmark–Norway , King Frederick I made a similar act in 1528, confiscating 15 of
6104-465: The friars, as mendicants , were supported financially by donations from the faithful, while ideally being self-sufficient and raising extensive urban kitchen gardens. The dissolution of the monasteries took place in the political context of other attacks on the ecclesiastical institutions of Western Catholicism. Many of these were related to the Reformation in Continental Europe . By the end of
6213-467: The golf course would have to find another new home as the land was again required for the expansion of the spa town. Local landowner Stafford Vere Hotchkin, offered a sandy tract of land off the Horncastle Road to build an 18-hole course. The course was designed by Harry Vardon and was formally opened for play on 24 April 1905. It was remodelled in 1911 by Harry Colt, and again by Hotchkin himself in
6322-428: The house when they died. In addition, though this scarcely ever happened, the endowments of the house would revert to the founder's heirs if the community failed or dissolved. The status of 'founder' was considered in civil law to be real property , and could consequently be bought and sold, in which case the purchaser would be called the patron . Like any other real property, in intestacy and some other circumstances
6431-682: The houses invited to receive them might refuse to co-operate; and local notables might resist the disruption in their networks of influence. Reforming bishops found they faced opposition when urging the heads of religious houses to enforce their monastic rules, especially those requiring monks and nuns to remain within their cloisters. Monks and nuns in almost all late medieval English religious communities, although theoretically living in religious poverty, were paid an annual cash wage ( peculium ) and received other regular cash rewards and pittances , which softened claustral rules for those who disliked them. Religious superiors met their bishops' pressure with
6540-757: The houses of the Observant Friars were handed over to the mainstream Franciscan order; the friars from the Greenwich house were imprisoned, where many died from ill-treatment. The Carthusians eventually submitted, other than the monks of the London house which was suppressed; some of the monks were executed for high treason in 1535, and others starved to death in prison. Also opposing the Supremacy and consequently imprisoned were Bridgettine monks from Syon Abbey . The Syon nuns, being strictly enclosed, escaped sanction at this stage,
6649-450: The houses of the wealthiest monasteries and convents. Further laws by his successor in the 1530s banned the friars and forced monks and nuns to transfer title to their houses to the Crown, which passed them out to supportive nobles who soon acquired former monastic lands. In Switzerland, too, monasteries were under threat. In 1523, the government of the city-state of Zürich pressured nuns to leave their monasteries and marry and followed up
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#17328701598686758-787: The income of French monasteries was diverted into the hands of the Crown, or of royal supporters, all with the Popes' blessing. Where the French kings led, the Scots kings followed. In Scotland, where the proportion of parish tiends appropriated by higher ecclesiastical institutions exceeded 85 per cent, in 1532 the young James V obtained from the Pope approval to appoint his illegitimate infant sons (of which he eventually acquired nine) as commendators to abbacies in Scotland. Other Scots aristocratic families stuck similar deals, and consequently over £40,000 (Scots) per annum
6867-476: The king, while mere estates were confiscated and run by royal officers, the proceeds going to the king's pocket. Such estates were a valuable source of income for the Crown in its French wars. Most of the larger alien priories became naturalised (for instance Castle Acre Priory ), on payment of heavy fines and bribes, but for around 90 smaller houses, their fates were sealed when Henry V dissolved them by act of Parliament in 1414. The properties were taken over by
6976-568: The last abbot, Richard Harrison, and three of his monks were executed by Henry VIII following their implication (probably unjustly) in the Lincolnshire Rising of the previous year. The land passed to the Duke of Suffolk and later to the Clinton Earls of Lincoln , who built a large country house. By 1791 that too had gone and all that remains today is a dramatic crag of masonry - a fragment of
7085-431: The line opened on 17 October 1848. Kirkstead Station, later renamed Woodhall Junction , was one of seven between Lincoln and Boston. A branch line to Horncastle , which included Woodhall Spa railway station , was opened on 11 August 1855. The railways brought increasing popularity, and an elegant spa town with hotels and guest houses on wide tree-lined avenues, largely designed by Richard Adolphus Came, grew up around
7194-427: The monasteries continued to attract recruits right up to the end. Only a few monks and nuns lived in conspicuous luxury, but most were comfortably fed and housed by the standards of the time, and few orders demanded ascetic piety or religious observance. Only a minority of houses could now support the twelve or thirteen professed religious usually regarded as the minimum necessary to maintain the full canonical hours of
7303-422: The monasteries in the late 1530s was one of the most revolutionary events in English history. There were nearly 900 religious houses in England, around 260 for monks, 300 for regular canons , 142 nunneries and 183 friaries; some 12,000 people in total, 4,000 monks, 3,000 canons, 3,000 friars and 2,000 nuns. If the adult male population was 500,000, that meant that one adult man in fifty was in religious orders. In
7412-615: The next year by dissolving all monasteries in its territory, under the pretext of using their revenues to fund education and help the poor. The city of Basel followed suit in 1529, and Geneva adopted the same policy in 1530. An attempt was also made in 1530 to dissolve the famous Abbey of St. Gall , which was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in its own right, but this failed, and St. Gall survived until 1798. In France and Scotland, by contrast, royal action to seize monastic income proceeded along entirely different lines. In both countries,
7521-504: The north of the Viking Way/Spa Trail: Highhall Wood is private but with a permissive access footpath through it; White Hall Wood is open to the public and Thornton Wood is private. The first nine-hole golf course was opened in Woodhall Spa in 1890, but only survived until 1895 when the land was required for building. A new site was found and another nine-hole golf course was laid out, but by 1902 it became clear that
7630-472: The number of church benefices that could in the future be held by one man. These Acts were meant to demonstrate that royal jurisdiction over the Church would ensure progress in "religious reformation" where papal authority had been insufficient. The monasteries were next in line. J. J. Scarisbrick remarked in his biography of Henry VIII: Suffice it to say that English monasticism was a huge and urgent problem; that radical action, though of precisely what kind
7739-527: The original facilities. He stated in his designs that none of the roads shall be "streets", which is still true today, and the roads built since have also been lined with various trees. In 1886 the estate was purchased by a syndicate , and extensive alterations and improvements were made. The Victoria Hotel and the Spa Baths were greatly modified by the syndicate, a group of investors including Lord Alverstone , Lord Iddesleigh and Edward Stanhope MP in 1887. Woodhall and Woodhall Spa stations closed along with
7848-587: The outskirts of the village and Thornton Lodge at Fifty Acre near Horncastle. It is concurrent with the Viking Way and forms a continuous traffic-free footpath between Woodhall Spa and Horncastle . Along the route can be found sculptures an information board on the history of the railway and local area. The Water Rail Way is a 25 miles (40 km) long part of the National Cycle Network that runs from Boston to Lincoln , following as closely as possible
7957-505: The path is also named after a native but seldom-seen wading bird called the water rail . The Legacy Woodhall Spa Hotel opened in 1882 as the Eagle Lodge Hotel. It was converted into a nursing home in the 1960s and reopened as a hotel in 1991. The Golf Hotel was originally called Clevedon House and has been a school, a club and a hotel of the same name. The Royal Hydro Hotel and the attached Winter Gardens were mostly destroyed in
8066-435: The personal compliance of the abbess being taken as sufficient for the government's purposes. G. W. O. Woodward concluded that: All but a very few took it without demur. They were, after all, Englishmen, and shared the common prejudice of their contemporaries against the pretensions of foreign Italian prelates. In 1534, Cromwell undertook, on behalf of the King, an inventory of the endowments, liabilities and income of
8175-495: The policy was originally envisioned as a way to increase the regular income of the Crown, much former monastic property was sold off to fund Henry's military campaigns in the 1540s. Henry did this under the Act of Supremacy , passed by Parliament in 1534, which made him Supreme Head of the Church in England . He had broken from Rome's papal authority the previous year. The monasteries were dissolved by two Acts of Parliament, those being
8284-471: The practice of nominating abbacies in commendam had become widespread. Since the 12th century, it had become universal in Western Europe for the household expenses of abbots and conventual priors to be separated, typically appropriating more than half the house's income. With papal approval, these funds might be diverted on a vacancy to support a non-monastic ecclesiastic, commonly a bishop or member of
8393-481: The previous century, resulted in their being singled out for royal favour, in particular with houses benefitting from endowments confiscated by the Crown from the suppressed alien priories. Donations and legacies had tended to go instead towards parish churches, university colleges, grammar schools and collegiate churches, which suggests greater public approbation. Levels of monastic debt were increasing, and average numbers of professed religious were falling, although
8502-768: The property of the houses to have reverted to the Crown as founder. The conventional wisdom of the time was that the proper daily observance of the Divine Office of prayer required a minimum of twelve professed religious, but by the 1530s, few communities in England could provide this. Most observers were in agreement that a systematic reform of the English church must involve the drastic concentration of monks and nuns into fewer, larger houses, potentially making monastic income available for more productive religious, educational and social purposes. This apparent consensus often faced strong resistance in practice. Members of religious houses proposed for dissolution might resist relocation;
8611-595: The property to the National Farmers Union and it was converted into offices as the company's regional headquarters. Around twenty five years later, it was sold to a local businessman, who continued to run it as offices for various Lincolnshire companies. In 2013 new owners renamed it Woodhall Spa Manor and it now serves as a wedding and event venue. Woodhall Spa came about by accident in 1811 after John Parkinson of Old Bolingbroke made several attempts to find coal . After spending several thousand pounds and sinking
8720-449: The property with which a house had been endowed by its founder were to be confiscated or surrendered, then the house ceased to exist, whether its members continued in the religious life or not. The founder and their heirs had a legally enforceable interest in certain aspects of the house; their nomination was required at the election of an abbot or prior, they could claim hospitality within the house when needed, and they could be buried within
8829-666: The religious houses of England and Wales—with the notable exceptions of those of the Carthusians , the Observant Franciscans , and the Bridgettine nuns and monks—had long ceased to play a leading role in the spiritual life of the country. Other than in these three orders, observance of strict monastic rules was partial at best. The exceptional spiritual discipline of the Carthusian, Observant Franciscan and Bridgettine orders had, over
8938-407: The response that the cloistered ideal was only acceptable to a tiny minority of regular clergy, and that any attempt to enforce their order's stricter rules could be overturned in counter-actions in the secular courts, if aggrieved monks and nuns obtained a writ of praemunire . The King actively supported Wolsey, Fisher and Richard Foxe in their programmes of monastic reform; but even so, progress
9047-625: The rest of the Boston to Lincoln line in 1971 and demolition of Woodhall Spa station came soon afterwards. The trackbed between Woodhall and Horncastle is now a bridleway known as the Spa Trail and forms part of the Viking Way . Woodhall Junction remains in private ownership. In the Second World War Woodhall Spa's two main hotels, The Golf Hotel and The Petwood Hotel, were requisitioned for
9156-573: The rest of the Church in acceding to the Royal Supremacy; and in swearing to uphold the validity of the King's divorce and remarriage. Opposition was concentrated in the houses of Carthusian monks, Observant Franciscan friars and Bridgettine monks and nuns. Great efforts were made to cajole, bribe, trick and threaten these houses into formal compliance, with those religious who continued in their resistance being liable to imprisonment until they submitted or if they persisted, to execution for treason. All
9265-665: The same year voted that henceforth every member of the regular clergy should be free to renounce their vows, resign their offices, and marry. At Luther's home monastery in Wittenberg all the friars, save one, did so. News spread among Protestant-minded rulers across Europe, and some, particularly in Scandinavia, moved very quickly. In the Riksdag of Västerås in 1527, initiating the Reformation in Sweden , King Gustav Vasa secured an edict of
9374-676: The secular world. Extensive monastic complexes dominated English towns of any size, but most were less than half full. From 1534 onwards, Cromwell and King Henry wanted to redirect ecclesiastical income to the Crown—they justified this by contending that they were reclaiming what was theirs. Renaissance princes throughout Europe were facing severe financial difficulties due to sharply rising expenditures, especially to pay for armies, ships and fortifications. Many had already resorted to plundering monastic wealth. Protestant princes would justify this by claiming divine authority; Catholic princes would obtain
9483-483: The soil around Woodhall Spa explains the formation of acidic heathland, in a county otherwise characterised by calcareous bedrock and naturally alkaline soils. Lincolnshire's heathland has historically been eroded by agriculture, forestry, quarrying and peat-cutting and is threatened by falling water-tables. To the northwest, south and immediately west can be found arable farmland, with the River Witham lying one mile to
9592-417: The south side of Kirkby Lane to the east of Woodhall Spa. It is open to the public for a range of recreational activities throughout the year. It is primarily pine with oak, birch and some other species around the fringes. It is bordered to the east by Kirkby Moor Nature Reserve and to the south by the former RAF Woodhall Spa, which has recently been purchased by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust soon to become
9701-458: The south transept wall of the abbey church - and the earthworks of the vast complex of buildings that once surrounded it, which is Grade I listed , and an ancient scheduled monument . The Tower-on-the-Moor, an octagonal, four-storey, red brick-built tower, is the stair turret of what is believed to have been a hunting lodge, built in the mid–15th century for Ralph de Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell whose fortified house, Tattershall Castle ,
9810-522: The south-west corner and east wings were built, greatly enlarging the footprint of the property, leaving the front entrance wholly Georgian, whilst, to the left and right are the Edwardian additions. The magnificent sweeping staircase, the beautiful hallway and Queens Room fireplaces, and the mahogany panelled entrance to the library all date from this period of high elegance. In 1965, Thomas Hotchkin's great great-grandson, Neil Stafford Hotchkin (1914–2004), sold
9919-530: The south. The nearest active railway stations are now in Boston , Lincoln , Skegness , Metheringham , Ruskington and Sleaford . An electoral ward of the same name exists. This ward includes Kirkby on Bain with a total population taken at the 2011 Census of 4,298. The village is within the Louth and Horncastle Parliamentary constituency. The more ancient parish of Kirkstead was amalgamated with Woodhall Spa in
10028-534: The spa'. After his passing, four further generations of the Hotchkin Family lived in Woodhall Lodge. At some point during the last century, it was renamed as the Old Manor or Manor House. During the residence of Thomas Hotchkin's great-grandson, Stafford Vere Hotchkin (1876–1953), who helped to redesign the adjacent world-rated golf course which bears his name, there were major additions to the building. Around 1905
10137-643: The status of 'founder' would revert to the Crown—a procedure that many houses actively sought, as it might be advantageous in their legal dealings in the King's courts. The founders of the alien priories had been foreign monasteries refusing allegiance to the English Crown. These property rights were therefore automatically forfeited to the Crown when their English dependencies were dissolved, but their example prompted questions as to what action might be taken should English houses cease to exist. Much would depend on who, at
10246-504: The time Henry VIII turned to monastery reform, royal action to suppress religious houses had a history of more than 200 years. The first case was that of the so-called ' alien priories '. As a result of the Norman Conquest , some French religious orders held substantial property through their daughter monasteries in England. Some of these were granges , agricultural estates with a single foreign monk in residence to supervise; others were rich foundations in their own right (e.g., Lewes Priory
10355-401: The time the house ended, held the status of founder or patron; as with other such disputes in real property, the standard procedure was to empanel a jury to decide between disputing claimants. In practice, the Crown claimed the status of 'founder' in all such cases that occurred. Consequently, when a monastic community failed (e.g., through the death of most of its members, or through insolvency),
10464-533: The value of monastic life and universally dismissive of relics and miraculous tokens. By comparison with the valuation commissions, the timetable for these monastic visitations was tight, with some houses missed altogether, and inquiries appear to have concentrated on gross faults and laxity; consequently, where the reports of misbehaviour can be checked against other sources, they commonly appear to have been both rushed and greatly exaggerated, often recalling events from years before. The visitors interviewed each member of
10573-668: The well collapsed in 1983. After spending many years in a derelict state, the site is now being redeveloped. Woodhall Spa lies at the southwestern edge of the Central Lincolnshire Vale, between the Rivers Witham and Bain . The village is largely flat rising gently towards the east, and is surrounded towards the north and east by a mixture of ancient and planted woodland. To the south west can be found many sand and gravel excavation pits, some still in use and some abandoned, many of which are now protected nature reserves such as
10682-496: The west of the village centre and arable fenland beyond that. The civil parish of Woodhall Spa borders the civil parishes of Tattershall Thorpe , Timberland , Martin , Stixwould and Woodhall , Roughton , and Kirkby on Bain . The village is served by the B1191 running west from Martin through Woodhall to Horncastle to the north-east, and by the B1192 from Coningsby and Tattershall to
10791-453: The widespread decline of the fervent monastic vocation, and that in every country the monks possessed too much of wealth and of the sources of production both for their own well-being and for the material good of the economy. Pilgrimages to monastic shrines continued until forcibly suppressed in England in 1538 by order of Henry VIII, but the dissolution resulted in few modifications to England's parish churches. The English religious reforms of
10900-410: Was a daughter of Cluny and answered to the abbot of the French house). Owing to frequent wars between England and France in the late Middle Ages , successive English governments objected to money going overseas to France. They also objected to foreign prelates having jurisdiction over English monasteries. After 1378, French monasteries (and alien priories dependent on them) maintained allegiance to
11009-586: Was advised in this action by the staunch traditionalist John Fisher , Bishop of Rochester . In 1522, Fisher himself dissolved the women's monasteries of Bromhall and Higham to aid St John's College, Cambridge . That same year, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved St Frideswide's Priory (now Oxford Cathedral ) to form the basis of his Christ Church, Oxford ; in 1524, he secured a papal bull to dissolve 20 other monasteries to provide an endowment for his new college. The remaining friars, monks and nuns were absorbed into other houses of their respective orders. Juries found
11118-466: Was another matter, was both necessary and inevitable, and that a purge of the religious orders was probably regarded as the most obvious task of the new regime—as the first function of a Supreme Head empowered by statute "to visit, extirp and redress". The stories of monastic impropriety, vice, and excess that were to be collected by Thomas Cromwell 's visitors to the monasteries, including Richard Layton and Thomas Legh , may have been exaggerated but
11227-508: Was common. The subjects of these dissolutions were usually small, poor, and indebted Benedictine or Augustinian communities (especially those of women) with few powerful friends; the great abbeys and orders exempt from diocesan supervision such as the Cistercians were unaffected. The resources were transferred often to Oxford University and Cambridge University colleges: instances of this include John Alcock , Bishop of Ely dissolving
11336-649: Was diverted from monasteries into the royal coffers. It is inconceivable that these moves went unnoticed by the English government and particularly by Thomas Cromwell , who had been employed by Wolsey in his monastic suppressions, and who would become Henry VIII's King's Secretary . Henry appears to have been much more influenced by the opinions on monasticism of the humanists Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More , especially as found in Erasmus's work In Praise of Folly (1511) and More's Utopia (1516). Erasmus and More promoted ecclesiastical reform while remaining faithful to
11445-526: Was held at the golf course in 1996. Most recently, it was voted 20th best course in the world by Today's Golfer magazine in 2010. The Viking Way is a 147 miles (237 km) long-distance footpath which passes through Woodhall Spa en route between the Humber Bridge and Oakham in Rutland . The Spa Trail runs for 3.4 miles (5.5 km) along the former Horncastle Branch Line between Sandy Lane on
11554-529: Was installed in 1987; its console (which is the only surviving Japanese Lacquered console in the UK) was originally installed in the Super Cinema, Charing Cross Road, London between 1927 and 1943. Jubilee Park, opened in 1937, lies adjacent to the Pinewoods and includes Jubilee Park Swimming Pool , a heated outdoor swimming pool . The park also offers tennis courts , a bowling green , children's playground, croquet and
11663-506: Was located 4 miles (6 km) to the south at Tattershall . It is a Grade II* Listed Building and a scheduled Ancient Monument . Documentary sources indicate that the tower was partly dismantled in 1472, when bricks from the Tower on the Moor were used for repairs at Tattershall Castle. One of the older roads in Woodhall Spa, Tor-O-Moor Road is named after the tower. The Tower is adjacent to
11772-472: Was painfully slow, especially where religious orders had been exempted from episcopal oversight by papal authority. It was also never certain that juries would find in favour of the Crown in disposing of the property of dissolved houses; any action that impinged on monasteries with substantial assets might be expected to be contested by a range of influential claimants. In 1532, the priory of Christchurch Aldgate , facing financial and legal difficulties, petitioned
11881-525: Was seen as much more important and vital than the monastic focus on contemplation, prayer and performance of the daily office. Erasmus had made a threefold criticism of the monks and nuns of his day, saying that: Summarising the state of monastic life across Western Europe, David Knowles said, The verdict of unprejudiced historians at the present day would probably be—abstracting from all ideological considerations for or against monasticism—that there were far too many religious houses in existence in view of
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