Dieulacres Abbey

The name means 'may God increase it,' and is derived from the purported exclamation of the wife of Ranulf, when he informed her of a dream in which he was requested to move the abbey from Poulton by his deceased grandfather. After his death his heart was removed and buried within the abbey, and his body elsewhere; which now seems unusual but appears to have been a common custom during much of the medieval period. During the 13th century there were numerous disputes with other monasteries in the area, such as Croxden Abbey and Trentham Priory, regarding the access and ownership of land, especially pastureland, and of the collection of tithes. These problems seem to have been eventually…

The abbey was surrendered in 1538 and much of the contents were sold off within days of the closure. The site was granted to Sir Ralph Bagnall. In his history of Dieulacres, Michael J. Fisher mentions that some time after the accession of Elizabeth I the abbey site passed from the Bagnall family into the hands of the Rudyard family, and it was probably they who built the present Abbey Farm early in the seventeenth century. Since then, Dieulacres has passed through the hands of many families, none of whom settled there for very long. It is said that at one time it was used to pay off a heavy debt incurred at the gaming tables, and its history since 1538 seems to have been a troubled and…