Rear view of Ashridge monastery. The monastery buildings survived in part, with additions and alterations, until the 1760s
Picture courtesy of Joan and Roger Hands
Hunting had long been a popular activity at Ashridge, amongst both the residents and visitors to the area. Members of royalty, the local nobility and Augustinian monks, hunted deer for sport and as a food source. The deer glimpsed between the beech trees at Ashridge today come from the herds that were once enclosed within the park. The boundary pale, or bank, originally with a wooden fence, can still be seen in places.
Thomas Waterhouse, last Rector of the College of Bonhommes. The monastery was dissolved in 1539
Picture courtesy of Joan and Roger Hands
Ashridge was popular with the royal family over many centuries. Edward I held a parliament at Ashridge in the late 13th century and Edward III often held court at nearby Berkhamsted Castle. The Black Prince became a patron of the monastery, strengthening its management and extending the Order of Bonhommes to the college in Edington, Wiltshire. This royal patronage certainly helped the monastery at the devastating time of the Black Death.
In Tudor times, the royal children stayed at the house and their father, Henry VIII, enjoyed hunting deer in the extensive woods. On the final Dissolution of Ashridge monastery in 1539, the last Rector, Thomas Waterhouse, was given a pension of £100 a year and 50 loads of wood. His brother, John Waterhouse, Henry VIII’s Auditor, lived at the old Bury; the family is remembered in our present day Waterhouse Street.
Princess Elizabeth on her arrest at Ashridge, before being taken to the Tower of London on the orders of Queen Mary
Picture courtesy of Joan and Roger Hands
In 1556, Elizabeth granted a lease of the property for 21 years to Richard Combe, gentleman, of the Bury in Hemel Hempstead. He was to pay six pounds and ten pence a year for all the houses, barns, stables, dovecote, orchards and gardens. Two years later, Elizabeth was at Hatfield House when she received the news of Mary’s death and her own accession to the throne. She never returned to Ashridge, perhaps because of the painful memory of the years of uncertainty about her own future and her imprisonment.
By Joan and Roger Hands
Wednesday, 4th May 2011