Portsmouth - Titchfield Abbey

At Titchfield (19mi/30km northwest of Portsmouth), a little place on the River Meon, are to be found the remains of a Premonstratensian abbey founded in 1238 by the Bishop of Winchester. Thomas Wriothesley, first Earl of Southampton, who was Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, converted it into his own residence in 1537, naming it Place House. The fine gatehouse and four towers in the Tudor style still survive. The medieval tiles with their beautiful motives are highly unusual. Shakespeare was often an honored guest of the third Earl, to whom the poet dedicated his sonnets.