It looks as if this video clip is not available online yet.
Use the enquiry button on the right and we’ll get back to you to discuss the quickest way for you to view it.
The films opens with a shot of the ruined West Front of the old Abbey. We then see the gatehouse and main driveway before a brief intertitle outlines the the Abbey's foundation by Henry II in 1170. We then see the ruined West Front of the old Abbey and the exterior of the main house intercut with titles containing extracts from Byron's poems and explaining his connection with Newstead.
A further intertitle then explains the shots we are about to see: the crypt, the staircase to the Great Dining Hall and the Hall itself. We then see the Grand Salon with its famous portrait of Byron by Thomas Phillips ARA, Lord Byron's bedroom, preserved as when he used it, the 'haunted' Monk's Chamber and the cloister court with its Gothic fountain, intercut with further quotations from Byron's poems.
We then see the Abbey against its lakeside setting and the view from the Grand Salon window.
We also see views of the Eagle (or Mirror) Pond, the stew pond (which supplied the Abbey with fish) and Byron's "mystic grove" and general views of the gardens. There is also a shot of Byron's oak tree planted in 1798 (followed by an intertitle which shows an extract from his poem To an Oak at Newstead ("Young oak when I planted thee....")
The final shot is of Byron's memorial to his dog Boatswain (Bo'sun).
No credits specified
The film was made by Harold S. Sherwin (the Lord Mayor's Secretary) for the Corporation of Nottingham with titles and selections of Byron's poetry by Mr W A Briscoe, City Librarian.
George Gordon Noel Byron was born 22 January 1788 in London and died 19 April 1824 in Missolonghi, Greece. He inherited Newstead Abbey, along with the title 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale, from his uncle William in 1798. He lived at the house on and off between 1808 (after coming down from Trinity College, Cambridge) and 1814 when the house was put up for sale. It was finally sold in 1818 to Thomas Wildman whose family's fortune had derived from Jamaican plantations. In 1861, Wildman’s widow sold the house to William Frederick Webb an African explorer and eventually the estate passed to Mr Webb’s grandson, Mr Charles Ian Fraser who donated the Abbey’s contents and the Byron relics to the Corporation and who is seen in the film. The house and grounds were sold by Mr Fraser to Sir Julien Cahn, a local philanthropist, who is also seen in the film.
The film features extracts from Byron's poems Elegy on Newstead Abbey, To an Oak at Newstead and Don Juan, (Canto XIII). The inscription on Bo'sun's memorial (Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog) reads:
"To mark a friend's remains these stones arise
I never knew but one - and here he lies"