PREFACE

Dieulacres Abbey is a part of my life that refuses to go away, nor would I wish it to. It all began during childhood days in Leek: walks over Hillswood, glimpses of Abbey Farm through the trees; being told “the abbey’s down there.” Never will I forget the day I climbed furtively over the boundary fence and saw for the first time the broken columns and foundations of the abbey church itself.

  

My interest in Dieulacres was further stimulated when, as a boy chorister at St. Edward’s church, Leek, I listened spellbound to a farewell address given by the late Preben - dary Norman Watson on the Sunday before he left the parish in 1952. His subject was the history of Leek, which had occupied a good deal of his spare time, and much was said about St. Edward’s and Dieulacres Abbey: thus began my own interest in Local History. Years later in my under - graduate days at Leicester, one of my tutors mentioned the Dieulacres Chronicle in the course of a lecture on Richard II. This triggered off several months of part - time research which I was able to continue on a full-time basis at Keele.

  

In 1969 I published an abridged version of my MA.thesis, foolishly thinking that, since I had moved from Leek,this would be the end of it. Not so: letters of enquiry and invitations to give talks on the abbey continued to pour in, and when the book went out of print there was a demand for a second edition. As I read through the original I realised that much more work needed to be done, and so I added an

Introduction containing information about the abbey’s founder and his family, more illustrative material and plans of the abbey site, and a chapter on the Dieulacres Chronicle which contains a unique record of the last years of Richard II’s reign and the revolution of 1399.

All that was in 1984, since when there have been more enquiries, more invitations to lecture, and requests for more copies of the book.One such request came just before Christmas 1988 from a lady in Australia whose ancestors,the Mountfords, were caught up in a dispute with the abbots of Dieulacres in the 1530s. Demand continues, and so I have decided to re-print, with some small amendments and additions, and also to produce a limited number of hard-back copies.

Experience tells me that this third edition may not be the end of my dealings with a subject that has been close to my heart since childhood: we shall see! Nor is it intended to be in any sense the last word on the subject, for others may wish to pursue some aspect of the abbey’s history in greater depth, and in the light of new evidence. I know, for example, that Dr. Philip Morgan of Keele University plans to draw together a group of students with a view to publishing some northern monastic chronicles, including the chronicle of Dieulacres. I wish them well.

Cistercians at work

Another hope which I entertain along with others concerned with the preservation of ancient monuments is that steps will be taken to investigate and preserve what remains of the abbey site. Conservation is the more urgent task, and I underline here what is stated in my 1984 Introduction,namely that the ruins of the abbey church are crumbling away, slowly but surely. In 1960 the south transept column

(shown to the right of the picture on the title page) was still standing to a height of about eight feet. It has since been reduced to a small mound of rubble (see the photograph on page 50). Other pictures reproduced in this book speak for themselves. As to the second task, any doubts I may oncehave had about the value of an archaeological investigation have been completely dispelled by the exciting discoveriesbeing made at the sister-house at Hulton where, prior to excavation, even less was visible above ground than at Dieu -lacres. Under the supervision of an expert medieval archaeologist, a similar exploration of the Dieulacres site would,in my opinion, be no less rewarding, and would be of immense interest both locally and nationally. There must surely be within Staffordshire an organisation or group willing and able to undertake at least some of the urgently needed conservation work, and to negotiate that most necessary pre-requisite, the permission and co-operation of the owners of the site.

Many years ago, I was privileged to look over a part of the seventeenth-century Abbey Farm, and I still have the little notebook I took with me on that occasion. One of the features of the house which attracted my attention was a staircase Window containing some heraldic stained glass, old, but not medieval. Inscribed upon one of the panes are some curious words which I reproduce exactly as they are written in my notebook: Y fynno.- dwy - y-fydd. They may be construed as a very corrupt rendering of the Welsh proverb,A fynno Duw. a “Whatever God Wills will be”. The inscription is. however, open to another interpretation. If read as, Y ff-ynnon dwy-y-fydd, it ceases to be ungrammatical, dwy being the correct rendering of the Welsh adjective "two" in agreement with the feminine noun ffynnon, meaning a spring or well. "The spring there will be two”: a cryptic message prnphesying, however unwittingly, a “second spring" Yet the foundation of Dieulacres Abbey in 1214 was in itself a "second spring” for the monks who camefrom Poulton-on-Dee to escape the ravages of (ironically) Welsh raiders and. as the Dieulacres Chronicle tells us,they came to what was already "holy ground”.

Will Dieulacres Abbey enjoy a “second spring” as an historic site from which there might flow new discoveries about an important part of Leek’s history ? Time will tell; but on another part of what was once the abbey’s estate there is already a "second spring". Arguably as old as the abbey itself, though long forgotten by many, Our Lady’s well in the valley which still hears her name was in years gone by a place of pilgrimage, prayer and healings; and there are those who would see it so again. “From such ground springs that which forever renews the earth."

MICHAEL. J. FISHER

Easter 1989




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