Haughmond Abbey

A Bit of History…

The abbey’s roots go back to around the year 1100 when a small religious community was established here, most likely a small chapel or hermitage, and probably founded and paid for by the first sheriff of Shropshire, Warin FitzWarin (aka Warin the Bald).

Under the patronage of the new sheriff of Shropshire, William FitzAlan, from the 1130s onwards, the establishment was enlarged and transformed into a priory and the community was re-founded as a house of Augustinian canons. In about 1155 the priory was promoted and became a full-fledged abbey, and then a major campaign of reconstruction began, replacing many of the earlier buildings, including the building of a new church.

The building of the new abbey was complete by about 1350, with its great church and main cloister to the north, and a kitchen cloister and abbot’s hall to the south, giving us the abbey we see today.

Haughmond Abbey was a substantial, successful and wealthy monastery for almost four centuries, until the abbey closed during Henry VIII‘s Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. The buildings eventually fell into disrepair and the church was largely destroyed, possibly during the Civil War.

The remains of Haughmond Abbey are quite extensive, including its abbots’ quarters, infirmary, refectory and cloister. The 12th-century chapter house still stands, as does the 13th-century infirmary and the 14th-century well house. The substantially surviving chapter house is richly decorated with 12th and 14th-century carvings. There are also several 13th-century tombstones displayed in the chapter house.