The five 3D models of Fonthill Abbey have been drawn using both plan and cross sectional drawings that are freely available on the web.
I consider them to be a fair representation of what the original structure looked like.
However some area's are not recorded in contemporary prints or plans,
so in these instances I have drawn in windows or estimated the height of structures, based on surrounding area's that had been recorded.

F  o  n  t  h  i  l  l    A  b  b  e  y


If you go to a quiet isolated part of central Wiltshire, and walk down an arrow straight, tree lined driveway, with just birdsong as your companion, the trees will eventually move aside for you and reveal a large, slightly raised area of ground shaped like a gigantic letter 'D' laid on its side.
The approach down the 1/2 mile long drive has primed your senses, you are expecting something grand, yet all you see to the far left is what looks initially like a small church.
The walk here was like listening to a drum roll, only to find the expected event that you thought it heralded, is not going to occur, your senses telling you that something in the panorama before you has been lost.
Two hundred years ago however your senses would have been satisfied long before you got to this point, as rising up before you there would have been a building that had all the grandeur of our finest cathedral, an entrance with 37 foot tall front doors opened by a dwarf, with a massive 270 foot tall octagonal tower taking central position in the building's imposing 312 foot frontage.

Fonthill Abbey was the creation of William Beckford, novelist, musician, sexual misfit, and eccentric, but above all the builder of one of most luxurious private homes the country has ever seen. The small remaining 'church' you now see, is the sole clue left to the lost presence of this once great abbey, as Beckford preferred to call his home.




  

For A Fonthill Abbey 'model' Click Picture.
(716 x 670 - 72KB)


William Beckford`s great-grandfather was Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, with his grandfather becoming Speaker of Jamaica's House of Assembly. His grandfather's credentials no doubt coming from the fact he was also a wealthy plantation owner, who is recorded as owning 24 plantations worked by 1200 slaves. William's father, although born in Jamaica, was educated in England at Westminster School, and followed this by a successful commercial career in London, eventually becoming its Lord Mayor and also a member of Parliament. It was to this wealth and family background that William was born on September 29, 1759 at the family home at Fonthill Gifford. His father died when the young William was approaching his eleventh birthday, which resulted in the young boy becoming the beneficiary of his father's vast fortune. The exact size of this fortune can only be guessed at, but several illegitimate brothers, that William also had, each received the sum of £5,000.

Beckford was educated in the arts and politics in preparation, it was thought, for a distinguished career like his ancestors, yet William was more interested in travel and literature, publishing his first book in 1780.

With, it is said, capital of £1.5 million and an income of £70,000 a year Beckford travelled extensively, finally returning to England in 1796 aged 37. He then decided to partially demolish his father's house, the very lavish and relatively new, Fonthill Splendens, and build a new and even grander property for himself.
He also had the entire estate encircled by a 12 foot high wall, estimated to have been some 7 miles length in total. Built ostensibly to keep out poachers, it in fact provided the privacy that Beckford seemed to crave.
Once Fonthill Abbey was habitable, the remaining contents of Fonthill Splendens were sold off and it was then, much to a lot of peoples disgust, demolished.
  

For A Fonthill Abbey 'model' Click The Picture.
(606 x 576 - 67KB)

The Abbey, about half a mile from Fonthill Splendens, was built and constantly added to over a 30 year period, and was probably the first to be built in the style of Gothic Revival. Others that later took their style from Fonthill included St Pancras Station, the National History Museum, and even the House's of Parliament. His 'Abbey' was furnished inside with the finest of everything, but apart from a well publicised visit by Lord Nelson in 1800, he rarely had visitors outside his circle of male friends - an earlier short marriage of 3 years had ended with the death of his wife.
A series of homosexual affairs, and one in particular with William Courtenay the son of Lord Courtenay, became public knowledge, so this added to his desire for solitude. Various scandalous stories, virtually all no doubt unsubstantiated, circulated about what occurred inside the closed world of the Abbey. Most involved sex, and many involved young men, with some being too young for public taste.

While most large Abbeys and Cathedrals were constructed from solid stone, and took centuries of work to finish, Beckford wanted an 'instant' creation. To speed up the building process therefore, conventional rough stone walls with lime mortar were built, and these were then rendered to look like dressed stone. Coloured sand was then spread onto the drying mortar to give a stone effect to the finished article. One 19th century document actually describes this as "promiscuous tinting".
This fake finish did not stand up to the weather however, and eventually the building needed cladding with thin sections of real stone, at substantial, and no doubt unplanned cost.


  

For A Fonthill Abbey 'model' Click Picture.
(526 x 580 - 56KB)



The 270 foot octagonal tower dominated the abbey which, during the relatively brief period it was standing, was filled with all manner of art and literary treasures.
Fonthill in its 500 acre estate, was actually the work of James Wyatt, one of the country's leading architects of the time. Beckford, in his position of possibly being the richest man in the country, undoubtedly took some inspiration for the design from Salisbury Cathedral some 17 miles away. The popular tale is that because of Beckford`s impatience, short cuts were taken with the foundations and this was thought to have been the building's un-doing, but recent research indicates otherwise.
The Abbey in the meantime had attracted great attention, yet because of its location, behind its 12 foot walls in the vast estate, it was seen by relatively few people. Apart from the sexual myths - and what better a subject for a myth - that flourished, another was that a coach and six horses could be driven internally to the top of tower with ease! Very rarely does a myth attached to a folly turn out to be true, and not unsurprisingly, this is no exception.

The interior, although luxurious, had the expected gloomy Gothic feel about it. This was particularly true about the long north to south running corridor, which was designed so that you could stand at the end of one wing and you would see to the far end of the opposite wing, a distance of some 312 feet. This could be achieved because the central octagonal hall supported the massive tower above, allowing a clear vista from one end to the other, this space was also said to have been illuminated by just 24 candles at night. Although the central hall was an appealing design feature, it may have ultimately been the Abbey's demise.
It is also said that the purpose of the tower, like several other follies, was for Beckford to eventually be buried at the top, not something that does a lot for the resale value it has to be said.

  

For A Fonthill Abbey 'model' Click Picture.
(662 x 574 - 61KB)


The whole building however was constantly being repaired or added to and after living there for over 20 years he decided to sell the Abbey because of mounting costs. Beckford himself remarked that the abbey accounted for at least £30,000 a year in running costs, and so it would take either a brave or foolhardy man to buy it. Although most likely he was not a brave man, fortunately for Beckford a Mr John Farquhar, ammunitions dealer, and it is said an eccentric miser, arrived on the scene and promptly paid the sum of £330.000. Beckford then wisely moved to nearby Bath.
(See Somerset, Beckford`s Tower )  

The tower, which had partially collapsed several times already, collapsed for the final time on the afternoon of 21st December 1825. An eyewitness account from someone who saw it fall describes it thus:-

"The manner of it falling was very beautiful, it first sank perpendicularly, and slowly, then burst and spread out over the roofs adjoining on every side."

  

For A Fonthill Abbey 'model' Click Picture.
(816 x 582 - 59KB)




Based on this description and an engraving made soon after, it has always been thought that something occurred at the base of the tower causing the failure. For a long time it was assumed that the foundations were inadequate, this being partly based on what the Clerk of Works had confessed to the dying Beckford. He is supposed to have admitted to not having put in adequate foundations initially, and so most likely causing the tower's collapse.
Recent ground radar tests carried out at the site however do not agree with this theory, as the radar tests show substantial foundations going down 6.5 feet. It is however known that Beckford insisted, like he did later at his Lansdowne Tower at Bath, for an ever increasing height to the tower. It seems, looking at plans of Fonthill which are in existence, that the lower walls that supported the tower were no longer adequate once the tower had been increased in height. It is assumed therefore that the lower walls gave way, causing the tower to fall like a pack of cards, the debris then spilling out to the south west.

Following the initial selling of the Abbey various artifacts found new homes, of which some fine stained glass windows, including one of Thomas Becket, went to the 'Lord Mayors Chapel' in Bristol.
The abbey was later sold to a Mr. Morison, who is described as a 'tradesman', and after his death in 1858 the remaining parts of the Abbey were demolished. Why the one small remnant of the north wing of the Abbey escaped is unknown, but were it not for that one remaining part, the clearing in the trees would have no mystery.


Visiting:-
The area is not open to the public.




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