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Key Image St Benet’s Abbey
St Benet’s Road
NR29 5NU Ludham
United Kingdom
Denomination: (remains)
Geogr. Coordinates: 52.68593° N, 1.52515° E
Geo Location
Reference year: 1100
Description: Remains of a Benedictine monastery (gatehouse, parts of the north aisle and the north transept)
Name derivation: From St Benedict of Nursia
Noteworthy
  • Ruin of a windmill built into the abbey gatehouse (c. 1725)
History:
Late 10th cent.:   Foundation of a hermitage by the monk Wulfric (an earlier hermitage may have existed in the 9th cent. according to records from the 13th cent.)
1019:   King Cnut bestows the hermitage with land and property for a monastery
Mid- 11th cent.:   Construction of a stone church
20/06/1381:   Burning of documents considered “instruments of subjection” during the Peasants’ Revolt
1536:   William Rugge, abbot of St Benet’s, is named bishop of Norwich and preserves the abbey from dissolution during the Reformation (as the only abbey in England)
1545:   Monasterial life cannot be upheld in the remoteness and isolation in reformed England, the last monks leave St Benet’s and the monastery is left to decay, its wood and stone being pillaged for the construction of other buildings
1594:   A report mentions only an uncovered gatehouse, a decaying barn and a fisherman’s house remaining on the site
About 1725:   Construction of a brick windmill in the remains of the gatehouse, which later becomes an attraction for the artists of the „Norwich School“ of painting
1987:   Installation of a tall wooden cross on the site of the former high altar
Important persons:
Patron:  Benedict (of Nursia) (480–547, hermit, founder of the first monastic order, abbot at Montecassino, called “the father of occidental monasticism“)
Sources
Norfolk Archaeological Trust: St Benet’s Abbey, https://www.stbenetsabbey.org/history.php, retrieved 07/03/2021
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TuK Bassler
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