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Dieulacres Abbey was a Cistercian monastery established by Ranulf, Earl of Chester at Poulton in Cheshire. [1] It moved to the present site at Abbey Green near Leek, Staffordshire in 1214, possibly in part as a result from raids at the former site by Welsh marauders.
The name means 'may God increase it,' and is derived from the purported exclamation of the wife of Ranulf, when he informed her of a dream in which he was requested to move the abbey from Poulton by his deceased grandfather. After his death his heart was removed and buried within the abbey, and his body elsewhere; which now seems unusual but appears to have been a common custom during much of the medieval period.
During the 13th century there were numerous disputes with other monasteries in the area, such as Croxden Abbey and Trentham Priory, regarding the access and ownership of land, especially pastureland, and of the collection of tithes. These problems seem to have been eventually resolved without any of the aggressive clashes sometimes noted under similar circumstances elsewhere. The abbey was the second greatest monastic land owner in the county, after Burton-on-Trent Abbey.
There were more difficulties in the 14th century, with the abbey being seized by the Crown in 1339 due to the accusation that “the abbey had been acquired in defiance of the Statutes of Mortmain,” though the abbot was quickly able to prove otherwise.
Royal grants of protection were offered to the abbey later in the 14th century however, it is also known that the monastery was often the source of problems in the area as the abbot maintained an 'armed band.' A royal commission in 1379 noted that the Abbot of Dieulacres, in order to control the area, had used these armed men, 'to do all the mischief they can to the people in the county of Stafford and that they have lain in wait for them, assaulted, maimed, and killed some, and driven others from place to place...' In 1380 the abbot himself was arrested and imprisoned following an incident during which a John de Wharton was beheaded by these men at the orders of the abbot. Amazingly, he was soon pardoned and released. In subsequent years members of the community were accused of theft and the abbot criticized for appearing to protect them. There were also numerous lawsuits. In 1517, Abbot William Albion and eight of the monks were charged with being involved in a major riot in Leek with the purpose of preventing the arrest of an abbey steward for murder. Even the abbot was witnessed in use of a bow! He was deposed, as was his successor.
The last abbot, Thomas Whitney was known to have violently abused abbey tenants and was possibly involved in fraud whilst actually accusing a former incumbent of such.
The abbey was surrendered in 1538 and much of the contents were sold off within days of the closure. The site was granted to Sir Ralph Bagnall.
In his history of Dieulacres, Michael J. Fisher mentions that some time after the accession of Elizabeth I the abbey site passed from the Bagnall family into the hands of the Rudyard family, and it was probably they who built the present Abbey Farm early in the seventeenth century.
Since then, Dieulacres has passed through the hands of many families, none of whom settled there for very long. It is said that at one time it was used to pay off a heavy debt incurred at the gaming tables, and its history since 1538 seems to have been a troubled and unhappy one.
The only in-situ remains above ground are of bases of two of the massive piers (columns) of the crossing tower and a stone coffin. The remainder of the ruins had been demolished before 1820, and much of the stone used in nearby farm buildings and other structures, and evidently includes many carved stones.
Fountains Abbey is one of the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries in England. It is located approximately 3 miles (5 km) south-west of Ripon in North Yorkshire, near to the village of Aldfield. Founded in 1132, the abbey operated for 407 years, becoming one of the wealthiest monasteries in England until its dissolution, by order of Henry VIII, in 1539.
Basingwerk Abbey is a Grade I listed ruined abbey near Holywell, Flintshire, Wales. The abbey, which was founded in the 12th century, belonged to the Order of Cistercians. It maintained significant lands in the English county of Derbyshire. The abbey was abandoned and its assets sold following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536.
Buildwas Abbey was a Cistercian monastery located on the banks of the River Severn, at Buildwas in Shropshire, England - today about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Ironbridge. Founded by the local bishop in 1135, it was sparsely endowed at the outset but enjoyed several periods of growth and increasing wealth: notably under Abbot Ranulf in the second half of the 12th century and again from the mid-13th century, when large numbers of acquisitions were made from the local landed gentry. Abbots were regularly used as agents by the Plantagenet monarchs in their attempts to subdue Ireland and Wales and the abbey acquired a daughter house in each country.
Abbey Green is a village near Leek in the English county of Staffordshire.
The Brindley Water Mill is a water mill in the town of Leek, Staffordshire, England, built in 1752 by James Brindley. It was restored to working order in the 1970s, and is now a museum. It is a Scheduled Monument and a Grade II Listed Building.
Combermere Abbey is a former monastery, later a country house, near Burleydam, between Nantwich, Cheshire and Whitchurch in Shropshire, England, located within Cheshire and near the border with Shropshire. Initially Savigniac and later Cistercian, the abbey was founded in the 1130s by Hugh Malbank, Baron of Nantwich, and was also associated with Ranulf de Gernons, Earl of Chester. The abbey initially flourished, but by 1275 was sufficiently deeply in debt to be removed from the abbot's management. From that date until its dissolution in 1538, it was frequently in royal custody, and acquired a reputation for poor discipline and violent disputes with both lay people and other abbeys. It was the third largest monastic establishment in Cheshire, based on net income in 1535.
Boyle Abbey is a ruined Cistercian friary located in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. It was founded by Saint Malachy in the 12th century.
Coggeshall Abbey, situated south of the town of Coggeshall in Essex, was founded in 1140 by King Stephen of England and Matilda of Boulogne, as a Savigniac house but became Cistercian in 1147 upon the absorption of the order.
St Mary Magdalene was a Benedictine priory in Lincoln, England. Along with Sandtoft Priory and Hanes Cell, it was a Lincolnshire cell of St Mary's Abbey in York, England. A surviving building, once owned by the priory, is Monks' Abbey, Lincoln.
Louth Park Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in Lincolnshire, England. It was founded in 1139 by the Bishop Alexander of Lincoln as a daughter-house of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire.
Sandwell Priory was a small medieval Benedictine monastery, near West Bromwich, then part of Staffordshire, England. It was founded in the late 12th century by a local landowner and was only modestly endowed. It had a fairly turbulent history and suffered considerably from mismanagement. It was dissolved in 1525 at the behest of Cardinal Wolsey – more than a decade before the main Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII.
Hulton Abbey is a scheduled monument in the United Kingdom, a former monastery located in what is now Abbey Hulton, a suburb of Stoke-on-Trent. A daughter house of the Cistercian Combermere Abbey, the abbey was founded by Henry de Audley in the early 13th century. Throughout its life, the abbey was relatively small and poor, with one of the lowest incomes of all Staffordshire religious houses. The abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538, with its land and assets being sold.
Poulton Abbey was a Cistercian medieval monastic house in Poulton, Cheshire, England, which was founded between 1153 and 1158, and moved in 1214 to a site near Leek, Staffordshire, where it became Dieulacres Abbey. The original site became a grange estate of the abbey, and the chapel at the site was used as a one-room local church. In 1487 the abbey leased the estate to the prominent Manley family and the chapel was expanded to include a nave, chancel, and tower for use as its private chapel. By the 16th century all abbey buildings had been lost, though the site of the chapel was noted on a 17th-century estate map and later on the first Ordnance Survey map (1823).
Rushton is a civil parish in Staffordshire, England. The village within the civil parish, usually known as Rushton Spencer, is about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Leek and 7 miles (11 km) south of Macclesfield, on the A523 road which runs between these towns.
Heaton is a small village and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. It is about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Leek and about 7 miles (11 km) south of Macclesfield.
Leekfrith is a civil parish in the Staffordshire Moorlands, in Staffordshire, England, north of the town of Leek. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 363.
Poulton Chapel was a medieval chapel in the hamlet of Poulton, Cheshire, England, close to the modern border with Wales. It was built around 1153 by the monks of Poulton Abbey. After the monks moved to Dieulacres between 1199 and 1214 and the abbey was turned into a farming estate for the monks, the chapel served as a one room church for the lay brothers working the land. In the 1487 the chapel was expanded when the estate was leased to the Manley family. During the English Civil War (1642-1651) the chapel was used as a stable and lookout. By 1672 it lay in ruins and by 1718 it was demolished. No above ground structures are extant.
Tittesworth is a civil parish in the Staffordshire Moorlands, in Staffordshire, England. It extends from the edge of the town of Leek in the south-west to Blackshaw Moor in the north-east. In the east is the village of Thorncliffe. To the west is the civil parish of Leekfrith, where the boundary is the River Churnet.To the east is the civil parish of Onecote. Tittesworth Brook runs westwards through the area from Thorncliffe, and flows into the Churnet.
The Ashes near Endon in Staffordshire is a building of historical significance and is Grade II* listed on the English Heritage Register. It was built in the 17th century probably by Sir John Bellot and was the home of many notable residents for the next three centuries. Today the barns of the property are venues for weddings and other special events.
