Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, one of the few surviving parts of the Benedictine Abbey of Tavistock, is an enigmatic structure. It sits, perpendicular to Plymouth Road, the elegant thoroughfare through the town, sandwiched between the vicarage and the Bedford Hotel. Its name – Betsy Grimbal’s Tower – is part of its mystery. There are contested views as to where it got its name. However, its very fabric is also part of its inscrutability. But, are its blocks and mortar all what they seem? Let’s take a closer look at Betsy Grimbal’s Tower and its history.
Who was Betsy Grimbal?
A murdered woman?
According to the Rev Edward Atkyns Bray (1778–1857), whose words are recorded by his wife, Betsy Grimbal’s Tower became so named because of an unfortunate woman who was “said to have been killed by a soldier in the spiral stairs of the tower flanking the old archway in our garden” (Bray, 1838, p319). The stains on the wall, he recounted “called her blood, used sadly to frighten me when I was a child“. Bray grew up in Abbey House, which later became the Bedford Hotel, right next to the tower. Born in 1778, if there is any truth behind this legend, Betsy Grimbal would have been murdered around or before this date.
In a later publication by his wife Anna Eliza Bray, the Rev Bray adjusts this story, reflecting on his childhood fear of the tower being haunted by Betsy. He reinterprets the blood-stains on the walls as “solely the effects of damp. Probably some ironstone” but that “allowing much for fabrication, we may fairly conclude that the story had its origin from some circumstance in which a female was concerned, and that some act of violence was committed on this spot” (1879, p436)
A 9th century monk?
Finberg, Tavistock Abbey’s eminent historian, disagrees (1969, p287). He speculates that the tower might have got the name after a ninth century scholarly monk called Saint Grimbald. Known as ‘Blessed Grimbald’, he reputedly taught King Alfred Latin, declined the role of Archbishop of Canterbury, and was appointed by King Edward the Elder as abbot of the New Minster at Winchester and “is credited with restoring learning to England” (Hunt, 1885-1900).
Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, according to architectural reports, probably dates to the 15th Century (Blaylock, 1998), six hundred years after Saint Grimbald lived. With no evidence of a renewed popularity of Saint Grimbald in the late medieval period, Finberg’s suggestion is based on nothing more than the alliterative similarity between Blessed Grimbald and Betsy Grimbal.
Which account to believe?
The account by Finberg has the verisimilitude of being suggested by a respected Oxbridge academic, appealing to a monastic and establishment narrative. But let’s be clear, there is no evidence to support this speculative attribution. Is plucking out the name of a 9th C monk, whose name rhymes with Betsy Grimbal, more credible than local folk memory of a murdered woman? Even in today’s society, with much lower homicide rates than was the case historically (e.g. Eisner, 2003), we are all too aware of women being attacked, raped and murdered. We are also aware of the way that the urban landscape – with darkly lit and secluded places – is used by perpetrators to commit attacks.
There were probably a number of murders of women in Tavistock in the 17th century alone. With the surname ‘Gribbell’, and other variant spellings, common in Tavistock records, is it so far-fetched that an ‘Elizabeth Gribbell’ might have met her end in this building?
Whilst opaque Saxon saints, murdered maids, and blood-stained walls are great copy – who doesn’t enjoy the macabre mystery of a haunted gothic edifice – there is another enigmatic story this building holds; a riddle in the fabric of its ruins…
Tower or Gatehouse?
The Reverend Bray, as we have heard, grew up at Abbey House in the late 18th century, with Betsy Grimbal’s Tower in his garden. His memories are therefore important and are the earliest descriptions of the tower in print, at least, as far as I have seen. It is therefore interesting that Bray, in letters written by his wife in the 1830s (re-published in 1879), specifically describes Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, as being the ‘southern tower’, i.e. the one on the right if facing the arch.
“The southern tower, called Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, is so denominated from a tradition that a woman thus named was there murdered by a soldier”.
Bray, 1879, p436
This is an important distinction because today we apply the term ‘tower’ to the whole structure. If you think about it, this doesn’t make any sense. A tower is a building that is taller than it is wide. We can see from photos of Betsy Grimbal’s Tower that this is not the case.
On one level this is just a semantic point, in which the legend of Betsy Grimbal has come to define the whole building. If we want to be historically correct though, then it is the tower on the right, when looking head on, that is Betsy Grimbal’s Tower.
Talk of whether Betsy Grimbal’s Tower is the whole building or just the southerly hexagonal structure may seem like an incidental point, but it is one I will come back to, however, for now, there are other things about this gatehouse that are even more puzzling …
The ‘Great’ Western Gatehouse Leads Where?
Our geography of Tavistock is, understandably, skewed by what we see today. The way visitors approach the centre of the town, when coming from the west, is along the grand, Plymouth Road. Built c. 1818, this thoroughfare is three hundred years younger than the monastery. Before this time the way into the town from the west was along Ford Street and West Street. The ‘great’ West Gate, as later historians have alternatively styled it, led to nowhere other than agricultural water meadows and orchards, as shown on the Wynne Map (1752).
If grand gatehouses are all about making a statement to townspeople and visitors, why then, did the abbey possess a gatehouse that merely went into the monk’s meadows? The answer might be because the ‘gatehouse’ is not all it might appear.
Check the Map!
Whilst Anna Eliza Bray’s books, in which she records her husband, the Rev Bray’s memories of Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, are the earliest written records of this structure, there is an earlier record – The Wynne Map. The Wynne Map was a detailed survey of Tavistock, drawn up for the then Duke of Bedford in 1752. The map was completed by an accomplished surveyor (called Wynne) and is drawn to a high degree of accuracy. So what does it show of this grand West Gate?
What is shown is that the building we know as Betsy Grimbals’s Tower did not exist in the form we know it today. Only the two hexagonal parts of the building are shown, with the northern of these (i.e. the one on the left when facing the entrance) abutted by a substantial wall. About 5 metres north is another building, but this is freestanding, not attached to the ‘gatehouse’. The detail to which the survey was drawn is illustrated by the way that the purpose and size of walls are represented. For example, whilst the north tower is shown abutted by a substantial wall, shaded pink, perhaps implying it was once part of a building, the southern tower is a node for medium and smaller walls of boundary, not structural purpose.
What this map therefore appears to show is that in 1752, the building we know as Betsy Grimbal’s Tower consisted of two hexagonal towers, the northern of which was joined to a wall, perhaps of a former building, but there is no vaulted archway evident between the buildings and no additional part of the building on the north side, as we see today.
What does all this mean? Either the Wynne map is wrong, or the building that we see today has been significantly modified since its representation in 1752. Let’s take a closer look at the building fabric …
Archaeological Assessment of the ‘Betsy Grimbal’ Gatehouse
In 1998 Stuart Blaylock of Exeter Archaeology wrote an assessment of the fabric of Tavistock Abbey (Blaylock, 1998). Blaylock’s analysis is fascinating because, throughout his report, there is a clear awareness that there are many things about this structure that don’t make sense. For example:
“The apparent uniformity and symmetry of the building in elevation masks a number of curious aspects in plan and conception, which marks the building out as unusual in its immediate function as a gatehouse and in a more general sense.”
He goes on to describe:
“The granite features are very variable, both in the style of the dressed stone frames and in their settings (in details of splays, relieving arches, shape of arches etc), and this inconsistency adds to the impression of discontinuity and variety in the fabric and may well support the possibility of some of the features being late insertions.”
In relation to the plan of the building, he makes the statement that it is “curious in a number of ways” noting that the gate passage appears to be an unconventional stand-alone structure. In relation to the south turret, he also notes it possesses ‘stand-alone’ qualities and that there is no clear evidence of a relationship of the turret to its adjoining walls. He does suggest that this ‘stand-alone’ characteristic has parallels in two other Devon monastic gatehouses but that this is for ‘principal gatehouses’ that had a twin foot passage as well as the wider vehicular passage, but that this is not the form of this Tavistock gateway.
He continues …
“another curious aspect of the plan is the absence of access north or south from the gate passage showing that this structure has neither a foot passage, nor any form of guard-house or porter’s lodge (again a normal element in a monastic gatehouse)”
The only entrance to the northerly room (that closest to Plymouth Road), is from the interior of the precinct and therefore this room was “separated functionally as well as physically”. This ‘room’ has only three observable corbels to support floor beams protruding from the north wall but there are no such corbels on the south wall (i.e. it is not built in a way that could support a floor).
Viewed from outside, the north elevation contains ‘two clearly separate masonry styles’ and this façade is described as being largely rebuilt. In relation to this wall, he notes that it is thinner than would usually be expected, built with an ‘interior face’ (which I interpret as implying that it is built the wrong way around to normal).
Blaylock concludes by saying:
“The general impression of the fabric is that there has been a good deal of past intervention in the building, some of which is detectable as straightforward repairs …. There is also a suspicion that some architectural features have been replaced, or rebuilt into the fabric incorrectly … Other aspects of alteration include the signs of disturbance at wall-top level .. [and] extensive repointing throughout.”
He recommends that the phasing and precise identification of these repairs will have to await a more detailed survey.
In 2017 just such a survey was carried out by AC Archaeology (Govier, 2017). As Blaylock had found, this report also draws attention to many of the rebuilt features and inconsistencies in the building including the lack of a mirror gable wall in the north chamber, and insufficient floor-supporting corbels. Additionally, they also say that, of the ten windows in the building …
“only two confidently appearing original to the primary construction of the tower – the ground-floor arrow-loop style window on the northwest face of the south turret and the first-floor window on the southwest face of the north turret.” (p4)
As Blaylock did, whilst attention is drawn to the many architectural inconsistencies and the clear evidence of rebuilding and repair, the report assigns a largely 15th century date to much of the building. It does not critically question the footprint and layout of the building despite acknowledging the Wynne map and noting that it shows a very different building to the one surveyed. The map evidence is therefore not critically considered in the interpretation of the building.
Is the Wynne Map Reliable?
You might be thinking, how can we trust the Wynne map? Perhaps the map was not drawn accurately? Of course, mistakes can happen in map-making. However, in every other respect the Wynne map has been shown to be highly accurate. This map was drawn up by a professional surveyer. Even if we just take what is shown of this gateway, the surveyor has gone to the trouble of representing the two hexagonal towers and different hierarchies of wall function and size. This suggests that there was a good degree of attention to detail being paid to the accuracy of the mapping. However, most conclusively, the structures shown on the Wynne Map are replicated on another map. Drawn up in the early 19th Century ‘Betsy Grimbal’s Tower’ is identically represented as consisting of only the two hexagonal towers with a wall coming off the north tower (Waterhouse, 2017).
So, if the West Gate isn’t all that it appears, apart from the turret towers, then when and why did the building get altered?
When was the Western Gatehouse Redeveloped?
The earliest image of ‘Betsy Grimbal’s Tower I have found, largely showing it as the structure we know today, labels it as ‘Old Arch’ and dates to 1823. With the survey map of c.1805-1815 cited in Waterhouse (2017), showing the building in its old form, these two documents narrow down the date. The building seems to have been ‘renovated’ into its current form between 1805-1823.
A lot was going on in this area in the early 19th century. The site had been much degraded since the dissolution of the abbey. By 1725 a ‘pompous dwelling house’ known as the Abbey House had been built by a wealthy local called Jacob Saunders. This was on the site that would become the enlarged Bedford Hotel (Mettler, 2013, p22). In its erection, remnants of the abbey, its cloisters, chapter house, and even the graveyard, were demolished and violated. The area degraded further, as attested by the opinion of William Gilpin (an artist, travel writer and proponent of ‘the pictureque’) who wrote in 1798:
“As to the Abbey, though it was once of mitred dignity and though, a considerable portion of it still remains, we did not observe a single passage that was worth our notice. What is left is worked up into Barnes, mills and dwellinghouses. It may give the antiquarian pleasure to reverse all this metamorphosis … but the picturesque eye is so far from looking at these deeds of economy under the eye of pleasure, that it passes by them with disclaim, as heterogeneous absurdities.”
Gilpin 1798, quoted in Mettler, 2013, p24
By 1803 the Duke of Bedford’s own survey reinforced how dilapidated and how in need of repair the abbey court area was (Mettler, 2013, p16). The situation in Tavistock was not so different to that of many towns. Indeed, with growing prosperity as a result of an economy fuelled by industrial entrepreneurship, there was growing complaint about the shabbiness of older towns (Jokilehto , 2017, p136). Redevelopment in Tavistock was therefore clearly ‘needed’ and eventually action was taken.
This took the form of giving attention to the area of the town formerly within the old abbey precinct. For example, the ‘pompous’ Abbey House was converted and extended to turn it into The Bedford Hotel, a grand Georgian house was built on the north side of the road (No 2 Plymouth Road), and the new vicarage built to the south. Both of these residences were complete by 1819, with the Bedford Hotel opened by 1822.
This zone – land within the former monastic precinct – was therefore the focus of much regeneration, around c. 1818-1822. It would therefore seem likely that it is at this time that masonry from the old abbey was being used to re-design this western gateway. If this was the case, the next question becomes, why?
Why? Gothic Revivalism, the ‘Picturesque’, and Tourism
We have already had a clue as to why the two hexagonal towers of this gateway might have been aggrandized in the early 19th century; the disparaging views of Tavistock by William Gilpin, mentioned above. Gilpin was not the only early ‘tourist’ to give Tavistock bad press. Others on the domestic circuit such as the Rev Swete and George Lipscomb also slighted the town (Mettler, 2013).
Gothic architecture had reigned in England for three centuries, between the 1200s and 1500s. When the monasteries were dissolved there was a shift away from the gothic to classical renaissance and baroque architecture. As the 16th century unfolded, all things monastic were distinctly out of vogue. This is exemplified by a marvellous quote in a book translated by John Evelyn which describes such architecture as ‘congestions of heavy, dark monkish piles’ (Myles, 1989). Monasteries were defunct, so many were pulled down, re-used or allowed to crumble. However, by the late 18th century, sufficient time had lapsed for these catholic edifices, to start garnering interest along with a growing concern about the loss of heritage. Organisations such as The Society of Antiquaries, founded in 1751, promoted old architecture and archaeological remains, as did a number of publications such as The Gentlemen’s Magazine which specialised in antiquarianism.
This trend was fuelled by a rise in the middle classes in Georgian Britain; people who had the wealth to enable them to engage in leisure pastimes, antiquarianism being particularly popular. Interest was further boosted by these wealthy individuals engaging in domestic tourism. Previously it had been popular to go on the ‘grand tour’ of Europe, exploring scenery such as the Alps and the ruins of the ancient world. However, access to the continent became denied, initially due to the French Revolution (1789-1799), followed shortly by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). Their romantic interest in the ‘picturesque’ therefore was forced to become nationally focused. All of this mobility around the country was facilitated by the improved accessibility offered by the expanding turnpike road network.
A good many publications and prints on picturesque and antiquarian subjects were published around these decades, testament to this fashion (e.g. the sketches and journal of the Rev Swete, Gray, 1997) .
For some of these individuals their passion was to paint or write about ruins, but for others it was to preserve and sometimes restore them. As an example, a man called John Carter published, in 1795, a book called ‘Ancient Architecture of England’ whose stated manifesto was ‘to inform those embarked on insensitive and ignorant restorations of mediaeval buildings of the true character of mediaeval architecture‘ (Myles, 1989). It is therefore clear that, at this time, significant gothic restorations were taking place across the land.
Tavistock, as a monastic town, was a place that might want to attract and impress visitors with its abbey pedigree and potentially picturesque townscape of ruins. The fact that Gilpin, J.M.W. Turner and others stopped here on their travel circuit is testament to this fact. However, seeing the disparaging words in print of Gilpin (“we did not observe a single passage that was worth our notice”) would surely have hurt the town’s pride. From a tourism perspective, this was also potentially commercially wounding.
The reason why the Betsy Grimbal ‘West Gate’ may have been artificially embellished can therefore be contextualised as being part of this era of the romantic, with its new-found love of the gothic, of heritage as a pastime, and of architectural restoration. To this we might add civic pride in Tavistock’s monastic heritage, and a possible desire to attract new ‘turnpike tourists’ to the town. With Tavistock suffering from bad press on the ‘picturesque trail’, was Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, along with the Court Gate and the Still Tower (also known to have been renovated), embellished to make it a more desirable ruin?
Discussion
Up until now I have been building a case as to why Betsy Grimbal’s Tower is not as it appears. However, there is one piece of evidence that I need to address which confuses the narrative. If we take another look at the memories of the Reverend Bray, we can see that he describes:
‘The gateway S.W… communicated with the gardens and pleasure-ground of the Abbey: it consists of a vaulted passage about nine paces in length and eight feet in height , between two towers that present to the front‘
Bray, 1879, p436.
On initial reading this sounds like the vaulted passageway was extant at the time Bray lived in Abbey House. The Wynne Map shows no evidence of a vaulted passageway in 1752. What are we to make of this conflicting evidence?
It may be the case that, because this is a gateway, the map maker chose to represent it as a clear space. However, even if the map maker wanted to leave a gap to show a passage point, the southern turret would still need to be abutted by a substantial wall, similar to that from the north turret. This is not the case. There is only a small boundary wall represented, insufficient in magnitude to bear the weight of a vaulted ceiling.
lithograph, circa 1825-1850. NPG D22431
© National Portrait Gallery, London under CC license.
If we look again at the words of the Reverend Bray, we need to also bear a few things in mind. The Reverend’s memories were not written by him but his wife Anna Eliza Bray. They were recorded in her letters to Robert Southey in the 1830s. Anna married Bray in c.1822/23, therefore after this area was re-developed. If Betsy Grimbal’s had been ‘renovated’ she is unlikely to have her own memory of what the building was like before any of the changes I have alleged here. The tense used by Bray in this description is also of note. She says that ‘The gateway S.W… communicated with the gardens and pleasure-ground of the Abbey‘. This is written in the past tense. However, when describing the vaulted passage, this is expressed in the present tense: ‘it consists of a vaulted passage …’. It is therefore possible that a contemporary description of the building is being expressed alongside a past memory by Reverend Bray.
Towards the start of this blog I mentioned that Betsy Grimbal’s tower, two hundred years ago, was understood by Bray to relate only to the southern hexagonal structure. Today, it is clear that the form of the building does not resemble a tower. If you asked anybody who didn’t know the building to describe it, nobody would choose the descriptor ‘tower’. It feels to me that, the reason the southern hexagonal part of the structure was known as a tower (later to give its name to the whole structure), is because in the 18th century, the two hexagonal buildings did stand as individual towers, later subsumed into the renovated wider structure that now adorns the vicarage garden.
The final point I want to make before moving to conclusions is about the outline of the gable wall preserved within the northern elevation of the building, as noted by Blaylock (1998) and Govier (2017). As discussed above, the road that we know as Plymouth Road, then called Abbey Mead, began its initial stages of construction c.1818. In order for this new road to be built, this would have necessitated the removal of the larger of the building’s numbered 20 shown in the annotated extract of the Wynne Map above. This building’s southerly wall appears to be in the right location to have been retained and re-used to form the north wall of the Betsy Grimbal building. This would explain why the northern elevation of the building preserves a gable on a north-south alignment and why, as Blaylock notes, the masonry appears to be inside out, with internal masonry appearing on the outside wall of the Betsy Grimbal building.
Conclusion – A Faulty Tower?
Recapping, the evidence presented here I have outlined that:
- Two maps of Tavsitock, the Wynne Map of 1752, and another survey dating to 1805-1815, have shown that the Betsy Grimbal’s Tower building did not exist in the form we see it today. These maps show that at that time, the building consisted of two separate towers, the northerly one of which was abutted by a substantial wall. There was no northerly chamber, and seemingly, no vaulted passageway.
- A ‘grand’ gatehouse, as this location has been sometimes styled, does not make landscape sense as this gateway from the monastic precinct communicated only with the meadows and orchards. There was no highway here and this was not a high status entrance from which to receive visitors.
- Two building surveys have highlighted the fact that Betsy Grimbal’s Tower has undergone considerable restoration. They point out that many elements of the building do not make physical or functional sense. Blaylock notes that the structure is built in such a way that its elements are not inter-connected. The interpretation offered in this blog is that the two hexagonal towers and possibly the wall of the passageway adjoining the northern tower may be original. It is also likely, given that architectural assessment seems to agree that the northern gabled facade is largely intact, is that this wall was part of a nearby building that was demolished to make way for the new Abbey Mead road; its one remaining wall being incorporated into the ‘restored’ Betsy Grimbal building.
- This area of Tavistock, within the old abbey precinct, underwent considerable re-development in the period around 1818-1822. This represents the most likely time when the building was ‘restored’. There would have been plenty of redundant abbey masonry available to re-use. Architects employed by the Bedford estate at this time may have been interested, as was the vogue, in experimenting with gothic restoration. Alternatively the motivation for doing up this gateway may have come from the Rev Bray, an antiquarian, whose garden Betsy Grimbal’s tower was in. Perhaps even, it was the Duke of Bedford himself, who provided a steer to his steward to facilitate the gothic restoration?
- Whilst this blog has drawn attention to the form of the Betsy Grimbal building in the 18th Century, what we don’t know is what form it took prior to this. The gateway may have always comprised of two free-standing towers and been a fairly modest structure. Alternatively, what we see on the 18th century maps might merely be the ruins of a former very different looking gatehouse. This raises the question – was the restoration of Betsy Grimbal’s Tower undertaken to re-create, as best as was possible, the footprint of a former building, or was it undertaken as a well-meaning but entirely faux enterprise?
In concluding this blog, my personal opinion is that the evidence strongly suggests that Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, to a considerable extent, is a contrived building, ‘restored’ c. 1820. However, I also feel that this does nothing to diminish it. Quite the contrary. The tinkering with its structure should be seen in the context of a golden age of re-development in Tavistock. This was a period that turned the ruinous former monastic precinct, once the jewel in the crown of Tavistock’s urban landscape, into a re-designed gothic-modern market town centre; fit for a World Heritage Site. Whilst Betsy Grimbal’s Tower may not be all that it seems, this additional layer to its heritage makes it just as important as it always was, even if this is not in quite the way we had imagined.
Acknowledgements
I would particularly like to thank Andrew Thompson, a local heritage professional and friend, for spending time with me analysing this building and, as usual, robustly challenging my ideas. In particular, Andrew pushed me, into understanding the reasoning why the building may not be all it seems.
References
Blaylock, S. 1998. An Assessment of the Physical Remains of Tavistock Abbey, Exeter Archaeology report no. 98.75.
Bray, A.E. (Mrs Bray) 1838. Traditions, Legends, Superstitions, and Sketches of Devonshire: On the Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, Illustrative of Its Manners, Customs, History, Antiquities, Scenery, and Natural History, in a Series of Letters to Robert Southey, Esq, Volume 2. John Murray.
Bray, A.E. (Mrs Bray) 1879. The borders of the Tamar and the Tavy, Volume 1 Their Natural History, Manners, Customs, Superstitions , Scenery , Antiquities , Eminent Persons , etc. W. Kent & Co.
Eisner, M., 2003. Long-term historical trends in violent crime. Crime and Justice, 30, pp.83-142.
Finberg, H.P.R. 1969. Tavistock Abbey: A Study in the Social and Economic History of Devon. Augustus M. Kelley, New York.
Gilpin, W., 1798. Observations on the Western Parts of England, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beaut, to which are added, a Few Remarks on the Picturesque Beauties of the Isles of Wight. T Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, Strand: London. Gilpin, 1798, p188
Govier, L. 2017. Betsy Grimbal’s Tower and the Still House, Tavistock Abbey, Tavistock, Devon. Report on behalf of Le Page Architects and AC Archaeology, Report No. ACD1544/1/0 Date: February 2017.
Gray, T. 1997. Travels in Georgian Devon: the Illustrated Journals of Reverand John Swete (1789-1800). Devon Books.
Historic England, 2011. Betsy Grimbal’s Tower, The Vicarage. https://historicengland.org.uk/
Hunt, William. 1885-1900. Grimbald. Dictionary of National Biography. From wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography
Jokilehto, J., 2017. A history of architectural conservation. Routledge.
Mettler, A. 2013, A Devon Gem – The Bedford Hotel, Tavistock. Philip Davies
Myles, J., 1989. LN Cottingham, 1787-1847, architect: his place in the Gothic revival. PhD Thesis. Department of Humanities, School of Art History, Leicester Polytechnic.
Waterhouse, R. 2017. The Tavistock Canal: Its History and Archaeology. Trevithick Society.
I will never look at this building in the same way again! thank you Sharon for enlightening us on something which has been hidden in the plain sight of day.
I shall need to rethink how I engage the public with guided walks around this iconic Tavistock building – thank you for sharing your meticulous research as always.
Thanks Simon. I am so pleased that this piece has made you think differently about this special Tavistock building. It is only my opinion (although, I hope, based on important evidence). I expect there will be critiques of this view, but I hope it sparks a conversation about Betsy Grimbal’s ‘tower’and an elaborated understanding of its landscape heritage.
Thanks Sharon I think that any critique to the opinion that you have articulated would have to be very robust, well researched and convincing to give me a reason not to go along entirely with your hypothesis.
Thank you for this very interesting and informative article about Betsy Grimbal’s Tower. I’ve long wondered about this interesting and confusing piece of architecture in the centre of Tavistock. It doesn’t look like a tower, and it doesn’t make sense to be an historical gatehouse. This helpful article makes a lot of sense of this Victorian conundrum without losing any of its mystery. Thank you.
I am so glad you found it interesting and that it is not just me that the ‘tower’ appellation makes no sense to! I am also very happy to hear that I have done nothing to dent the building’s mystery. I was concerned, in writing this, that it might come across that I was undermining Betsey Grimbal’s heritage rather than adding to our understanding of its layers. Thank you so much for reading xxx
Betsy Grimbal’s Tower has intrigued me ever since I first visited Tavistock thirty years ago and I am delighted that you have given so much thought to the evidence and drawn some interesting conclusions. I cannot help agreeing that the ‘picturesque’ qualities could be explained away as you suggest but the two towers on the line of the original precinct wall must relate to a door or opening of some sort. Thank you for opening up the discussion.
Hi Christopher. Thanks you very much for reading my blog and yes, I agree with you. I am not saying that there wasn’t a gateway here, just that it may not have looked like we see it today, and I don’t think it was a ‘grand’ gatehouse as styled by some historians. All gatehouses are functional, but some are clearly designed to impress visitors. I am not sure, in this location, Betsy Grimbal’s would have fallen into this category.
This is an eye-opener Sharon and very interesting. The association with the Blessed Grimbald is a bit of a stretch since we would have to accept that the townsfolk knew the building by that name, or by a corrupted version of it, before the dissolution.
I accept the point about violence being a possible explanation of the name. I’m thinking though that being old, poor and female was not a great combination and that perhaps some poor old woman may have been associated with one of the towers and if a corpse had been found at some point on one of the two towers, then hunger and poverty might have been as likely an explanation as murder.
What I found really fascinating though was the idea that there had been some sort of renovation in the early 19th century. Of course I had to go down and take a look at Betsy Grimbal again and there was one thing that struck me. The arch fits quite snugly in between the two towers, but the hood mould over the top (I think that’s what you call it) is not such a good fit. It seems to have been squeezed in on the right hand side and to have lost its little lug at the bottom of the mould because there just wasn’t enough room to fit it into place. It leaves you thinking that someone had the bright idea of fitting a medieval arch from somewhere else into the gap between the two towers …. and got it almost right!
Anyway, Mrs. Finberg’s wonderful reconstruction of the abbey probably needs a few amendments now!
Thanks for these fascinating ideas.
Hi Kevin. Yes, I have also noticed how poorly the arch fits and looks slightly too big for the span. It doesn’t smack of great workmanship does it? However, in the last few days I have been shown a different map from the 1750s which does clearly show the arch. So, what to make of this? There are a few possibilities aren’t there? 1) The arch is original and maybe the workmanship was not great because it didn’t matter, this being effectively a service gateway.2) The original archway, still present in the 1750s, was in a poor state of repair and got re-built c.1820. In rebuilding it, the arch didn’t go back in very well. 3) The archway, when built, perhaps in the 15th C (if building survey judgments on the towers are correct), was using, not new masonry, but was re-purposing un-needed masonry from elsewhere from the abbey precinct. What are your thoughts?
Hello Sharon,
It would be interesting to see the 1750s map, but I’m left wondering whether this could really be an original part of the abbey. Finberg talks about a lot of building going on the late fifteenth century and monastic building that has survived elsewhere from that time is of a high standard. Would the abbot have tolerated a bodged job even on that side of the abbey?
I notice too that the dressed stone on the lower left hand side of the arch is missing. Was it later damaged and just patched up? Or was only part of this arch available to be inserted just here?
Is it possible that when the Abbey House was built (and presumably much damage done to the remains of the monastery buildings) the incomplete arch was installed then? The Lafontaine engraving showing the Abbey House also shows some crocketed pinnacles at the edge of where the Betsy Grimbal building would be. That’s a bit weird. Gerry Woodcock says too that the building might have been a bridewell at some stage. If the arch is there as the 1750s map says, might the bodge-up when Saunders built the Abbey House?