Rufford Abbey

The Manor of Rufford was listed in the Domesday Book. The Rufford Estate covered approximately twenty-nine square miles and, in addition to the ancient Liberty of Rufford, it included the parishes of Bilsthorpe, Eakring and most of Ollerton, Ompton, Boughton, Wellow, and extended into Blidworth, Edwinstowe, Egmanton, Farnsfield, Kirton, Tuxford, and Walesby. The titles of Lord of the Manor of Rufford and of the Liberty of Rufford were sold at auction by the Manorial Society of Great Britain in July 2010.

The abbey itself was founded by Gilbert de Gant, on 12 July 1147, and populated with Cistercian monks from Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. The English Pope, Adrian IV gave the blessing for the abbey in 1156, following which the abbey's lands expanded and the villagers of Cratley, Grimston, Rufford, and Inkersall were evicted. A new village of Wellow, just outside the estate housed some of the displaced people. The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1534 gives the gross income of the abbey as £254 6s. 8d. (), and the clear annual value as £176 11s. 6d. (). Abbot Doncaster obtained a pension of £25 a year, on the dissolution of the house in 1536 among the lesser monasteries, but it was voided on his speedy…