Sawley Abbey: The scholarly Cistercian house of Lancashire

Sawley Abbey was an abbey of Cistercian monks in the village of Sawley, Lancashire. Created as a daughter-house of Newminster Abbey, it existed from 1149 until its dissolution in 1536 during the reign of King Henry VIII. The ruins are now controlled by English Heritage and are open to the public. Although not an extensive ruin, there are boards on the site that give information regarding the history of the abbey and its former inhabitants.

In the mid-1140s, Swain, son of Swain, sold his lease on the site to Abbot Robert of Newminster. The Percy family granted additional lands in the local area for the maintenance of the brethren, and in 1154, permission to build a fishpond and a mill was confirmed by Roger de Pont L'Évêque, Archbishop of York and King Stephen. By 1172, Pope Alexander III officially took the abbey under his protection. Despite struggling to survive with climatic conditions leading to crop failure, the abbey received significant land grants from Matilda, wife of William de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Warwick, who was key to the abbey's re-foundation in 1189.

In 1296, the move of Cistercian monks from Stanlow Abbey to nearby Whalley caused consternation at Sawley. The monks here complained that they had lost some of their income and that the cost of food and building materials had increased. A dispute over the price of tree bark nearly destroyed Sawley's tanning operation until the Cistercian order intervened in 1305. However, in September 1306, Archbishop William Greenfield excommunicated the abbot, John de Houeden, along with most of the senior monks, for a period of seven years. The reason for this is no longer known.

Despite being a relatively poor establishment with an annual revenue below £200, Sawley Abbey developed a scholarly tradition. The abbot from 1224 to 1233, Stephen of Sawley, was a well respected spiritual writer, and William de Remmyngton went on to become Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1372–3. An English translation of a Latin work by the 13th-century scholar-bishop Robert Grosseteste is also thought to have originated here. The abbey was suppressed in 1536, and after various uprisings, the monks surrendered the building to Sir Richard Tempest, who then turned it over to Sir Arthur Darcy.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons