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Cistercians Abbey: GRACE DIEU Name: GRACE DIEU Location: nr Monmouth
County: Monmouthshire As early as 1217 John, lord of Monmouth (d.
1248), had raised the possibility of founding a new community
with monks
from Dore abbey. It was not until 1226 that
a colony of monks finally settled at Grace Dieu, a delay that was
thought to have been caused
by both local unrest and the size of the benefactor’s purse.(1) Grace
Dieu was the last of the Cistercian foundations in Wales and
was also the least well known. The abbey appears to have been wrecked
by the Welsh in 1233, who claimed that the abbey site was on land
that rightfully belonged to them. However, by 1236 John had managed
to secure the monks a new location and the community began rebuilding
the abbey with timber granted from the Forest of Dean by King Henry
III. The community had little luck at its new site and forty years
later Edmund of Lancaster, lord of Monmouth, proposed moving the
abbey yet again. It is not known whether a second move took
place, but it is clear that Grace Dieu remained one of the poorest
Cistercian houses in Britain. In the assessment of 1535 the net
annual income of the abbey was valued at just £19.(2) The
abbey was dissolved in 1536 with the smaller monasteries and it
seems
thereafter left to ruin. The site of the permanent foundation cannot
be precisely fixed but it is thought to be marked by slight earthworks
in Abbey Meadow, on the east bank of the river Trothy.(3)
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