Card of the Day - 2021-10-11

This card is described as the Battle Abbey auction sale notice from Fleet Street. We did some digging and found out that the Abbey was built on the very site of the Battle of Hastings, under order from the current Pope, Alexander II, as penance and remembrance of those killed by the Norman invaders on that day and also in the times which followed as they conquered the Country, and that the altar was to be placed directly above the spot where King Harold had died. The Abbey was complete by 1094 and remained a religious building until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, but instead of destroying this one, gave it to a friend, who still demolished the Church and converted other parts into his country abode.

The first time it was sold was in 1721, by a relative of the first owner. The purchaser was an M.P., Sir Thomas Webster. It remained in his family until.1857, when it was sold to Lord Harry Vane, later Duke of Cleveland. On the death of the Duchess of Cleveland in 1901, the estate was bought back by a relative of the Webster M.P. It remained with them until he died in 1923, and then it was sold, but to the British Government, who turned it over to the care of English Heritage. They in turn allowed it to be used as a school with some kind of association with a Canadian base in the Second World War (Canadian records are very hard to access, unfortunately, as I am trying to access them at the moment - the reason is that a lot of them were destroyed). Strangely it is still being used for educational purposes as it is now Battle Abbey School.