Swineshead Abbey
Swineshead Abbey was an abbey in Swineshead, Lincolnshire.
The Abbey of St Mary, a Cistercian monastery, was founded in 1134 by Robert de Gresley.[1] Gresley and his son, Albert, endowed the Abbey with 240 acres of land and other gifts.[2] The Abbey was originally Savigniac and populated with monks from Furness Abbey,[2] but was absorbed into the Cistercian order along with all the other Savigniac Houses in 1147.[3] In 1170 the Abbot of Swineshead was reprimanded for owning villages, churches and serfs.[3] King John spent a short time in the Abbey after losing his baggage in the fens, and just before his death in 1216.[3] It was dissolved in 1536 with the first Act Of Suppression, its last Abbot being John Haddingham.
The first documented reuse of the site dating from 1607 when a farmhouse, Abbey House, was built out of the abbey ruins by Sir John Lockton.[1] The Abbey House is a Grade II listed building.[4]
The abbey occupied a slightly raised area in the marshland 1km north east of Swineshead. In the raised area in the north-eastern part of the monument, partly overlain by Abbey House, are the buried remains of the abbey's inner court where the church, cloister and dorter would have been located.[1] Adjacent to the west is another raised area where the remains of the outer court are located; these would include stables, barns and other agricultural and service buildings, together with the principal gatehouse of the abbey.[1] The foundations of stone walls and fragments of medieval artefacts have been located in the outer court.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Pastscape". Swineshead Abbey. English Heritage. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Victoria County History". Swineshead Abbey. British History Online. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Cistercians in Yorkshire". Cistercians in Yorkshire Project. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
- ↑ "British Listed Buildings". English Heritage. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
Coordinates: 52°56′55″N 0°08′34″W / 52.94869000°N 0.14276290°W