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These articles were sent to me by PJ - Words & Music Mailing List Resident Archaeologist

When you first spot the gilt lettering spelling out PREBENDAL atop the huge stone entrance and sweep up the drive past two Romany caravans, topiary peacocks and posh period outbuildings, you could be forgiven for mistaking the mansion for one of those out-of-town management training schools.  And so it was once--a training school for priests intent on becoming bishops.  Which explains the refectory, so convenient for those dozens of golden discs and framed magazine covers, not to mention the golden harp, a legacy of the buildings medieval past.  And the chapel, once used for daily prayer and now used only for the family in special circumstances.

And there is the ghost of John the Gardener--NOT the gardener who actually does the gardening, you understand--he and his wife live in a cottage on the estate.  Ghostly green fingered John did the weeding nearly 500 years ago and he hasn't been able to tear himself away.  "A psychic we'd never met came to the house and said, "Oh Look!  John the gardener's over there!" says Robin matter of factly, gesturing to a tarot tiled wall butting up to a spooky suit of armor.  "He was wearing sacking when he came through the dining room wall."  And around midnight you can hear the sound of a big clock being wound up where the clockmaker, who used to live here in the seventeenth century, used to keep his gear.  And there's a font that mysteriously fills itself up
with ice cold water.  "We've done everything to try to find a scientific reason, but there isn't one."  Not that Robin minds ghosts.  This is a man who actually stood in the garden of London's serial killer Dennis Nelson just to "Pick up the vibes" of victims dismembered on the premises.  "What gives a house like this soul is the thousands of people who have passed through before you.  If there's anything supernatural going on, you soon get used to it.  You never own a place like this; you're just a caretaker for future generations."

On Robin's birthday, December 22nd, the date of the midwinter solstice, a tree bursts mysteriously into blossom behind the house.  It is still in flower in late January as we tramp around admiring the mullioned stone work.

Robin bought the Prebendal three years ago and set about restoring it to its former glory.  The bedrooms all have antique four-poster beds and there is oak paneling everywhere.  With all that decor, it could be a gloomy house, but instead it feels warm and comfortable.  Robin's ambition is to rebuild the great hall which was burnt down over two hundred years ago.

It is a grand house of fine masonry and ancient creaking timbers.  And of ghosts like the gardener in a sack cloth and the little girls who bestow a smell of roses when they come to visit the Prebendal's bedrooms.  "I'm not convinced that it's haunted," Robin Gibb says of his medieval home.  "Everybody in the house has seen a ghost but me....  This ghost takes the form of a gardener...  and I've had a few sightings in the house, so he's definitely here and he's wearing breeches and things like that."

The Prebendal also contains a mysterious font, a basin for holy water, which is found in the oldest part of the house.  Robin exclaims, "It keeps filling itself up mysteriously with water... for no reason at all....  I don't know what it is!  I've had it analyzed.  It's pure water, but I don't know where it comes from!"  The origin of this water remains a mystery.

Today, sitting around a roaring log fire at the Prebendal, in a room covered in oak paneling, ancient spinning wheels, traditional musical instruments and a giant flat screened TV, Robin Gibb seems quite at home.  When it comes to furnishings, there's a touching blend of Robin's feel for the ancient and romantic--lots of dark, carved wood and tapestry-like cushions to sit on, and
Robin's devotion to 20th century communications.  That explains the television which sits on a tree stump in the magnificent sitting hall beside the monumental fireplace.  Televisions turn up everywhere in this magnificent manor, undistinguished in all their naked glory.  There's a giant screen in the formal sitting room, where it doesn't quite live with the hanging tapestries and clerestory windows, a portable in the kitchen, even a little set at the bottom of Robin's four-poster bed.  So it comes as a surprise to hear Robin say "I don't watch television very much.  Now my brother Barry, he's a real television addict.  If he had this house, you'd see four sets in one room, all going day and night, tuned into different channels!"

Among a treasure trove of the unexpected, what you'd most expect to see is nowhere in evidence--the guitars, sheet music and recording equipment that are the traditional paraphernalia of the singer-songwriter.  "I don't scribble that stuff here.  It's more conducive in Florida where you can step out of the studio and get a breath of tropical night air and recover from work in the sunshine next morning," explains Robin.

The only sign of  pop stardom is the ancient dining hall with its walls covered in gold discs.  In the summer, the rose garden is spectacular.  There is a three acre vegetable garden which supplies the vegetarian macrobiotic chef with all of his needs.

In Bee Gee Robin Gibb's medieval mansion, gold discs compete for wall space with tapestries and suits of armor, and ghosts like to make there presence felt.  Here, he tells our readers why he loves the place so much.

Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees is standing at the front door of his Oxfordshire mansion, guarded by a pair of matching stone griffins, looking very much like the lord of the manor.  Except this particular lord is wearing a skinny black top, drainpipe jeans, biker boots, glinting diamond ear stud, and a gigantic turquoise Roman signet ring.  His flyaway blonde hair cascades over an earlier, shorter, darker hairstyle to create a strange two-tone effect and add another shade to the picture of a wealthy pop star whose royalties have
paid for the house we all want.

A twenty acre estate surrounds the medieval home, built in 1241 as an ecclesiastical training center.  The gardens are cared for by none other than the Queen's former gardeners at Sandringham, and manicured lawns and borders wind around the big kidney shaped swimming pool, the stone circle that was installed where the tennis court used to be, and the gypsy caravan on the front lawn.

"I've always loved old houses and history.  I like the idea that this place has been lived in for hundreds of years," says Robin.  He holds court in a grand and cavernous room that has changed little in 750 years, with its stone fireplace, wooden beams, and huge and faded medieval tapestries.  The only technological invasion is a television big enough to double as one of the
video screens at a Bee Gees concert.

"I don't like modern houses at all," says Robin, who divides his time between the village of Thame and Miami where the Bee Gees have their studio.  "The distinction is that I like working in the states but I prefer living in the UK.  I like the culture of Britain.  I like the sense of humor, the attitude, the way people think."

When in England, Robin enjoys the theatre, both West End and fringe, and spends a lot of time driving around looking at ancient sites and buildings, and shopping for antiques.  It's all a part of the great house restoration project.  Since he moved here, he has painstakingly renovated the home, recreating much of its original glory.

He found the house on a Sunday afternoon expedition into the country.  "I was living in Barnes and went out with my copy of Country Life to look at houses. This was one of them.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted it.  It was terrible inside with concrete floors and fifties decor and things like that, but...."  Robin smiles that toothy Bee Gees smile...."It's amazing what you can do with a few hundred thousand pounds."

"I wanted it to have more of an ecclesiastical feeling because of its history, and try to put back some of the feeling of a medieval house.  But you can't be too silly about these things--I also wanted a dish washer, a computer, and a whole heap of modern labor saving devices."

Although the house retains many of its original features, including the wooden beams in the refectory, where he holds huge Hogmanay gatherings for friends and family, many others had to be replaced.

The oak paneling in the dining room, together with the stained glass, the candelabra, the medieval tapestries and the suit of armour were all put here after he moved in, though the portrait of Anne Boleyn is original.  "Did you know she had three breasts?" Robin inquires, although the picture shows only the requisite pair.

The fax machine and photocopier are of a more recent vintage.   So are the gold discs that hang over the walls and clutter the shelves everywhere you look.   "Gold records are just another plate to serve your next meal on," Robin says mischievously, "But they do fill the empty space on the walls."

Robin is an avid collector.  He has first editions of Dennis Wheatley, and original manuscripts line his shelves, and an almost complete set of Punch magazines, though he is still looking for the very first edition.  A collection of spinning wheels adorns nooks and crannies in the huge reception room where the ghost of a clockmaker, who used to live in the house, allegedly winds his clocks each night at midnight.  There is a different ghost that fills a little decorative stone wall basin with water when no one is looking.  Robin has thought of restoring the grand hall which, until it burned down, used to connect the living room to the refectory and chapel, where they held a touching memorial service for Andy Gibb, the brother that died at the house.  "We did find a fifteenth century ceiling we could use," says Robin nonchalantly.  (Where, I wonder, do you find a fifteenth century ceiling--let alone one the right size?)

Robin Gibb might not be titled--not yet anyways--but you can't help feeling that he is so happily settled into his ancient house that he would indeed make the ideal Lord of the Manor.  "I do feel very much at home here," says Robin.

[ HISTORY OF THE PREBENDAL ] [ PREBENDAL PICTURES ] [ LIVING IN THE PREBENDAL ] [ GHOSTS 1 ] [ GHOSTS 2 ] [ THAME ] [ RESEARCH RESOURCES ] [ LINKS ] [ EMAIL ] [ DISCLAIMER ] [ MISC IMAGES ]