Name: LOUTH PARK Location: nr Keddington
Village County: Lincolnshire Foundation: 1137 Mother house: Fountains (from Haverholme) Relocation: 1139 Founder: Bishop Alexander of Lincoln Dissolution: 1536 Prominent members: Access: Private farmland, no public access
The original foundation was made in 1137 by
Bishop Alexander of Lincoln who offered a group of monks from Fountains Abbey
a site on the Isle of Haverholme. This was one of the first houses
to be settled with a colony of monks from Fountains. However,
the
monks soon found the site unsuitable and asked for leave to settle
themselves in the bishop’s deer park, east of Louth. The
site at Louth was probably chosen as the land here was more
suitable
for agriculture, which was the main occupation of the Cistercians;
the community transferred to Louth Park in 1139. As the foundation
history of Fountains Abbey (the Narratio de fundatione
Fontanis Monasterii) states: Now the seed fell into good ground and grew to a great harvest,
and in a little while they became a great nation, a people whom God
had
blessed.
The abbey at
Louth received considerable donations from several prominent aristocrats,
including Ranulf, earl of Chester, Hugh and Lambert de Scotney,
and Hugh of Bayeaux.(1) By the
thirteenth century the abbey had acquired considerable wealth and
is said to have housed sixty-six
monks
and
150 lay-brothers. (2) However,
the abbey did not maintain these profits. Heavy losses were incurred
between 1332 and 1349 when Thomas
of
Lissington stole cattle, hunted on the abbey’s lands, set
cattle to despoil the abbey’s grasslands and assaulted the
abbey’s
servants. In the mid-fourteenth century the abbey was hit by the
great pestilence which carried off the abbot and many monks and
brought fresh losses to the abbey.(3) The
house never recovered the propsperity it had enjoyed in the thirteenth
century;
at the time of the Dissolution the abbey had a net annual income
of £147
and there were only eleven monks, including the abbot.(4) The
house was dissolved
in 1536 and the abbot was later executed as a traitor after he
participated in the Lincolnshire rebellion, known as the Pilgrimage
of Grace.(5)
There are no standing remains of
the site, but the layout is clear from surviving earthworks.
The site lies on private farmland and cannot be accessed by
the
public.
