A valley of delightful beauty

In the first of two articles, David Robinson considers the medieval abbey at Hartland, beginning with its nebulous origins as an ancient religious site associated with the cult of St Nectan

- David Robinson

Hartland Abbey, Devon, part I 
A seat of Sir Hugh and Lady Stucley

MARVELLOUSLY situated in a tranquil valley along the rugged Atlantic coast of Devon, Hartland Abbey seems at first glance like a Regency house in the Gothic style so beloved by the late-Georgian squirearchy of Britain. Behind its crenellated façade and pointed windows, however, there is a much deeper history, one which extends all the way back to the emergence of Christianity in western Britain.

In fact, at nearby Stoke-the site of Hartland's medieval parish church (Fig 4)there is evidence for a small early religious site, focused around the cult and relics of a local hermit, Nectan. By the time of the Norman Conquest, this had emerged as a major English 'minster', served by a body of priests, or 'secular' canons. In the 1160s, the old-established community was disbanded, to be replaced by 'regular' canons, the term relating to their observance of the quasi-monastic rule attributed in the Middle Ages to St Augustine of Hippo (d. 430). Their new abbey, dedicated to St Nectan, was built on the very spot now occupied by the Georgian house (Fig 1).

In seeking to unpick the detail in this story, our starting point is a 14th-century manuscript, now housed in the Ducal Museum at Gotha in Germany. Among the folios are rare hagiographical texts, several of which are of West Country provenance, notably the Lives of St Petroc, St Piran and St Rumon. It is, nevertheless, the inclusion of the Life of St Nectan that adds weight to the suggestion that this important manuscript may actually have been assembled at Hartland Abbey.