Document of the month

Nottinghamshire Archives holds a large collection of prints and illustrations, and many of these show scenes of houses, churches and buildings throughout the county.

This image shows Newstead Abbey, located ten miles north of Nottingham.  Newstead was founded as a priory of Augustinian canons by Henry II in c1163-73.  It was dissolved in 1540 when Henry VIII granted it to Sir John Byron of Colwick and the house became the seat of the Byron family, including the poet Byron who inherited the estate in 1798.

The building today includes elements surviving from c1270 including the west front of the church, a Gothic facade with later Perpendicular windows.  Much of the later mansion was designed and remodelled in the nineteenth century by Colonel Thomas Wildman, who purchased the estate in 1817. 
This illustration shows the west front of Newstead Abbey and was published in June 1834.  The Abbey was later purchased by Sir Julien Cahn who presented it to the Nottingham Corporation in 1931.