Becca Jane St Clair

In March 2010, I blogged about Barlings Abbey, an abbey ruin located not far from Tim’s grandad’s house. In April 2010, we were to find another random abbey ruin while driving with my mom.

We had discovered the remains of Tupholme Abbey.

Tupholme Abbey was founded between 1155 and 1165. The area was picked primarily for it’s location to the River Witham, and was expected to do well. However, this was not to be the case at all. While it was operational, the abbey suffered many debts. In 1347, an abbot was accused of “forgery and counterfeiting of the coin of the realm”. In 1482, the canons were forbidden to leave the abbey due to unruly behavior, and in 1497, an abbot was banished to Leicester for having a child with a local woman.

Tupholme Abbey was dissolved in 1536 under King Henry VIII.

The land and abbey changed hands many times, becoming part of a mansion and later a manor house. In the 1970s, the site was even used for a music festival. Finally, in 1988, the National Trust took over the property.

You can visit the ruins for free – but you might want to make sure you have your Wellies when you go! We had to walk through sheep grazing to get to the ruins. The pasture was rather squishy with what I hoped was mud, but I fear wasn’t!

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users can comment directly on Facebook.]