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ST BENETS ABBEY

ALTERNATIVE NAME:

ABBEY OF ST BENET OF HULME, HORNING ABBEY

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The earliest monastery was founded here by Suneman circa 800, but destroyed by the Danes in 870. It was refounded by Wulfric in 960, and reformed to the Benedictine rule in 1019 as an abbey. The abbey was not dissolved but given to William Reppes, Bishop of Norwich in 1540 (also known as Rugge or Repps) who stripped it and expelled the monks. Most features are visible as foundations and earthworks, and a survey was undertaken by RCHME in October 1994.

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(TG 38321563) Remains of St Benet's Abbey (NR)
(Benedictine Founded 1020). (TG 37801600) Causeway (NR).
(TG 38021578) Abbey Gate (NR) (Remains of). (1)

Abbey of St. Benet of Hulme. Saxon monks led by Suneman founded a small monastery with a chapel of St Benedict circa 800 which was destroyed by the Danes in 870. Wulfric founded a community and rebuilt the chapel and houses circa 960. King Cnut founded the Benedictine Abbey in 1019. The abbey was the only religious house not actually supressed by Henry VIII, but the monks had probably left by 1539. (2)

Remains consist of the Great Gatehouse, C14th with remains of a late C18th brick windmill on it (3), extensive foundations of the church and conventual buildings, C12th and later (4), a fragment of the precinct wall and the bank and ditch marking the remainder of its course. Considerable earthworks, fishponds and steadings, cover most of the interior, particularly just east of the Gatehouse (5), and the causeway approach from the NW (published by OS and very evident on the air photographs).

The enclosed area is given by Rudd as 86 acres and in 1602 it was said that there were 2000 yards of wall (4); but the actual area (as shown on OS 6" and the air photographs) is about 43 acres and the actual length of the enceinte is about 1250 yards (discounting the river-side) and there is nothing on the air photographs to suggest that the extent was ever any greater.

Camden records the tradition that the Abbey was so strongly fortified in Norman times that it looked more like a castle than a cloister (4). (3-5)

This extensive sub-triangular site of almost 40 acres is situated on a naturally elevated area and is bounded by a wet ditch on its north and east perimeter and on its south west side by the River Bure. The principal building remains are the ruined gatehouse with its early C19th brick tower mill, the north side of the nave, a fallen stretch of the south nave wall and part of the north aisle. Fragmentary foundation remains of the chapter house and south aisle can also be seen. Ranged along the river bank were more buildings and the foundations of these survive, some under grass and some exposed by river bank erosion.

The principal fishpond complex is to the east of the gatehouse while other isolated ponds lie in the east and south corners of the abbey grounds. All the ponds are dry or nearly so. Access to the site was gained by two causewayed roads; that from the north is still in use whilst the approach from the west, between the River Ant and the Gatehouse, can be clearly seen crossing a pasture field.

See photographs. Resurveyed at 1:2500. (6)

In October 1994, following a request from English Heritage, RCHME's Cambridge Office carried out an analtyical earthwork survey of the Abbey precinct and architectural surveys of the surviving remnants of the church and the gatehouse. A photographic archive was also established (negs. BB94/21248-21283).

The Abbey was the only religious house in England not to be dissolved by Henry VIII; it was granted to William Reppes, Bishop of Norwich, who stripped most of the buildings and effectively forced the last monk to leave c.1540 (7a). In the 1620s, a barn, and various other structures including houses survived, and an etching of 1728 shows that much of the upper floor of the gatehouse was still intact at that date (7b). The surviving fragment of the precinct wall appears to be a later addition and the relatively poor quality of the flintwork may indicate a 17th century date, perhaps contemporary with Ludham Hall (TG 31 NE 2).

The earthworks and building remains are generally as described by previous sources. The main causeway to the Hospital of St James (TG 31 NE 5), mentioned by Source 6, is recorded as TG 31 NE 17. The natural rise on which the church is located has been modified into a more regular form. The cloister garth can be identified as an earthwork, as can a number of grave mounds. The precinct is divided into a series of enclosures, many with their own associated buildings (visible either as foundations or as earthworks) and ponds. An inn called The Chequers or St Benet's house, demolished between 1884 and 1907, certainly occupied the site of a monastic building and may have incorporated all or part of the Medieval hospice, if a description of 1880 applies to this building (7c). A dock survives as an earthwork adjacent to the gatehouse, and the flint wall of a possible wharf was recorded on the Bure waterfront south of the church.

For further details, see RCHME Level 3 client report, earthwork plans at 1:500 and 1:1000 scales and architectural plans and elevations at various scales, held in archive. (7)

William Rugge or Repps was Bishop of Norwich 1536-1550, he was also Abbott of Saint Benet of Hulme. (8)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1961

( 2) by David Knowles and R Neville Hadcock 1971 Medieval religious houses in England and Wales

Page(s)56,75,481

( 3) List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest

DOE (HHR), No 2374/11/A Smallburgh RD 1947 9

( 4) Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society Norfolk archaeology : a journal of archaeology and local history

W R Rudd 18, 1914 Page(s)XXXI-XXXIII

( 5) Aerial photograph

CUC CQ 18.19.21

( 6) Field Investigators Comments

F1 JB 19-JUN-73

(7) Field Investigators Comments

RCHME: ST Benet's Abbey Survey

(7a) Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society Norfolk archaeology : a journal of archaeology and local history

Swales TH. The Redistribution of Monastic Lands in Norfolk at the Dissolution 34, 1966 Page(s)45-73

(7b) General reference

Snelling J. 1983. St Benet's Abbey, Norfolk

(7c) Journal of the British Archaeological Association

Loftus-Brock EP. The Abbey of St Benet at Holm 36, 1880 Page(s)15-21

(8) World Wide Web page

'Bishops of Norwich', Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: volume 7: Ely, Norwich, Westminster and Worcester dioceses (1992), pp. 37-41 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=35247 [Date accessed:15-NOV-2010]

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