Bindon Abbey

The monastery was founded in 1149 by William de Glastonia on the site since known as Little Bindon near Bindon Hill on the coast near Lulworth Cove as a daughter house of Forde Abbey, but the terrain proved too demanding to sustain the community. In 1172 the monastery moved to a site near Wool, the gift of Roger de Newburgh and his wife, Matilda de Glastonia (the granddaughter of the original founder), who also endowed it with further estates in the county. The monastery retained the name of its original location. The abbey had the support of the Plantagenet kings, and Henry III granted several letters of protection. In 1280 the abbey was granted the right to a weekly market and annual fair…

The foundations of the monastery and the surviving walls show that it followed the standard Cistercian layout of a cruciform church with a nave and two side aisles and a straight east end, with two chapels off each arm of the transept (the so-called 'Bernardine' plan). From an 18th-century engraving, it appears that the elevation of the church featured pointed arches on round piers, like the surviving church at Buildwas Abbey. The mill on the River Frome – Bindon Mill – to the north of the ruins would originally have been part of the monastery. It was converted into a residence between 2006 and 2009.