Godstow Abbey

Heritage listing

Details The monument includes the standing and buried remains of Godstow Abbey, a 12th century Benedictine nunnery with associated water and drainage channels, earthworks and a bridge. The abbey stands on the west bank of the Thames, west of Wolvercote village, on an island formed by watercourses which leave the Thames to the north of the Abbey and run southwards to form the western precinct boundary. These watercourses continue south to join Wytham stream, but another strikes off at a right angle, heading north east to rejoin the river just to the south of the small field known as Godstow Holt: this lies just beyond the southern boundary of the scheduling. The nunnery was founded by Ediva, or Edith, widow of Sir William Launcelene, probably in 1133. According to legend, after living a holy life at Binsey for some time, she was bidden by a voice to go to where a light from heaven touched the earth, and there to establish a house for 24 of the `moost gentylwomen' that she could find. The story tells that the light fell at Godstow, and so it was here, with the aid of an endowment from Henry I, that the nunnery was built: it was dedicated in 1139. The nunnery was to hold lands in many counties, becoming, with Elstow, near Bedford, one of only two nunneries north of the Thames comparable in wealth to some of the great Anglo-Saxon foundations of Wessex and the south. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the land was sold and the nunnery buildings converted to domestic use. They were lived in until the Civil War, but on 23rd May 1645 they were burnt down and subsequently in greater part demolished. However, some of the buildings survived into the 18th century, including the church tower, which blew down in a gale in 1764. In 1690, the antiquarian, Anthony Wood, was g

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.