SPINNEY ABBEY

• 11030 - Manufacture of cider and other fruit wines

In 1301 Mary de Bassingbourne expanded the establishment with 90 more acres and four more canons. The bad news was that her endowment depended upon the canons feeding three thousand poor people per year - a task which they soon enough complained was ‘grievous and insupportable'. In 1403 the Prior, William de Lode, was murdered by three of his own canons who stabbed him in the priory church. What happened to the murderers is unrecorded. This grisly tale has given rise to many ghost stories about the Abbey. Fortunes at Spinney declined with the Black Death and the social upheavals of the fourteenth century, and in 1449 Spinney Abbey was absorbed into the priory of Ely, which in due course became Ely Cathedral. The priory continued in existence and the almshouses it supported were not immediately abolished. In 1536 Henry VIII began the dissolution of the monasteries. Spinney became a private property and was owned by various persons, including Sir Edward Peyton who had been a prominent..

Also known as: Spinney Abbey Farm and Spinney Abbey Ltd., Spinney Abbey Limited, SPINNEY ABBEY LTD

Registration numbers: 07750753 (CH), 7750753 (W)

Primary location: Wicken United Kingdom