About the book :
              Hardcover, 230 pages, 8 of them in Colour and many Black and White Illustrations
              On sale at Battle Abbey, Nick Whistler's and other local bookshops
 £19.50
ISBN 0-9528093-1-1

This book tells for the first time the full dramatic story of the Websters who owned Battle Abbey for more than two hundred years between 1721 and 1976.

Driving ambition and great wealth was followed by profligacy on an heroic scale, chronic debt, sexual adventures, importunate mistresses, illegitimate children, disease, lunacy, suicides and early deaths.

During their ownership the Abbey was neglected for long periods.
Yet by the time the Websters left it had become a renowned and much-visited part of our national heritage.

Based on extensive new research but written for the general reader, this book is a revealing and very readable addition to the literature about Battle Abbey.
 

About the author :
Roy Pryce has lived in East Sussex for most of the past 40 years.
 A former professor at the University of Sussex he has published books on Heathfield Park (1966), Rotherfield Hall (2001), and Heathfield and Waldron: An illustrated history (2000). He read history at the University of Cambridge where he obtained a Double First and a Doctorate: he was subsequently a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Antony's College, Oxford

'Battle Abbey and the Websters' was launched on Saturday 26th November 2005 in the Function Room at Battle Abbey where friends and family gathered to get their first sight of the book and soak up some of the atmosphere of this most appropriate location.

You may contact the author by Email through my website at: roy-pryce@battle-abbey.co.uk