Newstead Abbey (Newstead)
Newstead Abbey is a historic house at Newstead in Nottinghamshire.
The original was a priory founded for the Augustinian Black Canons in 1170 by Henry II, as part of his atonement for the murder of Thomas Becket. The West Front and cloisters survive.
It was converted at the Dissolution of the Monasteries into a 16th century mansion, which was inherited by Lord Byron in 1798, by which time excessive spending and gambling debts had led to a great deal of decay.
Byron sold the house to his friend Thomas Wildman, a Jamaican plantation owner, in 1817, and it is mainly Wildman`s house, remodelled by John Shaw, that can be seen today.
Newstead Abbey sits in a beautiful and extensive park with a lovely lake.