Ingress Abbey today 

Ingress Abbey

The Ingressor was recently invited to "tour" Ingress Abbey by the owners, Pandora International. Pandora make and sell very large video editing editing systems to TV companies and they use the Abbey largely as their administrative offices (so, no, its not jam packed with state of the art IT kit - disappointingly its just offices).

Sadly the Abbey is also missing all of its interior period features which were removed either during its years as a ruin or during its renovation. (Look for interesting stone features in local gardens!). So despite an imposing panelled entrance hall, the majority of the rooms are a  modern though attractive whitewash effect.

Some of the deeper parts of the Abbey go back a way and there are what appears to be the scullery or possibly wine cellars hidden away but stories of access to vast caverns appear to be false. However one famous story, of an a haunted mirror in which you could see ghosts, has at least some foundation as the present occupants have an old photo of the mirror but the object itself is nowhere to be seen. We are trying to get a copy of the photo for the website

CEO of Pandora, Aine Marsland, told us that the Abbey has a confused status in some people's minds. "We get people picnicing on our lawn or walking in and trying to do a tour or book a wedding reception. Sadly some people are disappointed when they find out the the Abbey is not a tourist attraction open to the public"

(See Stone Castle for a good local place for wedding receptions)

"We have taken some people around who have travelled a long way to see the Abbey, especially those who remember it from their days in the Maritime College but they are always let down when the old period features they remember are nowhere to be found"

In a similar vein, the lack of obvious branding has caused a mysterious aura to envelop Pandora themselves with rumours around that the Abbey was owned by Aardman and was where Wallace and Gromit is produced (false - though Pandora have worked with Aardman), that the Abbey contains a super-powered computer (nope, quite low tech in fact) or that the owners were part "a very secretive" organisation (hardly, they have their own website). Maybe we should leave rumours alone as reality is often more down to earth

But looking at the building itself, and its location, it is a shame, in a way, that it does not form the focal point of the community and indeed at one stage Crest and Pandora did speak about taking the Abbey back into the hands of the community but sadly, the funds were not forthcoming. During our chat, it seemed to us that should the right offer be made, Pandora would not stand in the way of a deal that would see the Abbey become the hub of a thriving social network. But that is a thing to be looked at in future, for now we can only thank Pandora for the chance to see the Abbey today and to squash some of the wilder rumours.

Pandora

The History

"Its the people trying to book their wedding reception that cause us a few problems"