“I hear you will have Quarr Abbey”

I spent most of last week on the Isle of Wight - a favourite place. I made a point of visiting Quarr Abbey to see the remains of the old Abbey, which gets a mention in The Mirror and the Light, where Hilary Mantel has Thomas Cromwell talking to Call-Me Wriothesley about it. “I hear you will have Quarr Abbey” he says. This division of the spoils from the Dissolution of the Monasteries was memorably shown in the stage play: Cromwell and his associates bickering over the deeds of various abbeys before toasting “God and Profit.” Thomas Wriothesley was indeed granted Quarr Abbey in 1537; he quickly sold it on to a Mr John Mills of Southampton, who was responsible for its demolition. (Note to self: visit Yarmouth Castle next time I’m on the island: some of the stone ended up there).

What caught my eye?

Apart from Quarr, I wasn’t expecting to do much Cromwelling on the Isle of Wight, but I reminded myself that he was made Governor of the Isle on November 2 1538. I’m not sure how active a role he played: Mantel has him contemplating a trip in 1536: “I doubt I’ll be going further than the south coast this summer. Perhaps down to the Isle of Wight.” Further investigation is for another day.

But this Sixteenth Century tomb from the church of St Mary at Carisbrooke caught my eye - although I didn’t know whose it was when I photographed it. I later read it is a memorial to Lady Margaret Wadham, who founded a hospital, with the six figures behind her representing patients. Lady Margaret was the wife of Sir Nicholas Wadham, the Captain of Newport. And she was the daughter of John Seymour of Wolf Hall in Wiltshire. An unexpected link!

In my studio

I didn’t get much studio time last week, and focused on preparing a piece to take with me on my travels: an outline of the first house at Austin Friars, on which I made a little progress while I was away. I’m at that uncertain stage with the Cromwell Houses stitchery where I am not sure whether it is working - the house at Fenchurch Street is probably two thirds done; the first Austin Friars is in outline; the second Austin Friars is also in outline. I need to draw out the Rolls House and the house at Stepney, and get myself over to Canonbury to see what remains on Cromwell’s house there. I have to remind myself that this piece will probably not seem to be working until all the different houses are joined together.

I suspect there is something a bit disjointed about the process behind it at present. There are only a few mentions of Fenchurch Street in the Cromwell Trilogy - and a couple of mentions in the Henry VIII State Papers - so I was able to pick those out and work them into the stitching. But for the subsequent houses, I need to be sure of what happens and who lives where at what point both in the narrative, and in the archive. So I think a re-read of the trilogy with more comprehensive note taking is in order. And that’s no hardship. I prefer to work that way - I don’t work as well and it’s far less satisfying when I am stabbing at a kindle search function to find the instances of a particular word. So (another note to self) forget about taking short cuts, and get back to working more immersively.