Thorney Abbey

The earliest documentary sources refer to a mid-7th century hermitage destroyed by a Viking incursion in the late 9th century. A Benedictine monastery was founded in the 970s, and a huge rebuilding programme followed the Norman Conquest of 1066. A new church was begun under the abbacy of Gunther of Le Mans, appointed in 1085. It was in use by 1089, but not entirely finished until 1108. a writ of his survives ordering the return of the manor of Sawbridge in Warwickshire to the abbey "and there is to be no complaint of injustice". The focus of the settlement shifted away from the fen edge in the late 12th or early 13th century, the earlier site becoming a rubbish dump, perhaps because of…