Crowland

52.675555555556 - 0.16777777777778Koordinaten: 52 ° 41 'N, 0 ° 10' W

Crowland is a town in the south of the British county of Lincolnshire.

Location

The place is situated on two to five meters above sea level south of Spalding, west of Wisbech, northeast of Peterborough and east of Stamford in a vast agricultural area on the A 1073 and B 1040.

History

The older place name is Croyland ( = swampy land ); the present name came up only after the abolition monastery during the Reformation. Originally, the place in marshland " the Fens " was divided by rivers into three parts, of which even the Trinity Bridge testifies. The three- arches bridge originally led on the confluence of the rivers Welland and Nyne. Privileges and Market rights were Croyland under King Stephen 1142 under King Henry VI. 1460th

Croyland Abbey

The abbey was from 716 of Aethelbald, King of Mercia, in honor of St. Guthlac built. This son of a Mercian nobleman, dressed as a monk 699 in the solitude of today Crowland back, then an uninhabited island in the swampy area, where he built himself a hermit's cell, and 714 died.

Wetlands around the island was reclaimed by the monks, and gradually grew up near the Abbey a settlement approach that lived from the Abbey. In possession of the abbey was at 870, the oldest known windmill in Central Europe.

Over the centuries, the abbey was three times more or less destroyed, 870 by the Danes, and in 1091 and 1170 by conflagration. From then on, was the development of the monastery until its dissolution in the 16th century, due to its relatively isolated location undisturbed; the grave of St.. Guthlac drew pilgrims to and from the highest strata that made Croyland to a rich Convent and one of the most important monasteries in England. Soon the abbey estates had in six counties. The wealth enabled the construction of a stately church, of which today only ruin-like Westwerk and enter the times outlasting Northern vessel's certificate. The provided with a large window, with arcades and ornamental figures with West Facade ruin in the Decorated style goes on phases of 12-13. ( lower range) and 14-15. Century (upper area ) back. The north aisle and the tower was built by the Benedictine monk who died in 1427 and master mason William of Wermington.

1539 brought the Reformation under King Henry VIII, the end of the Benedictine monastic tradition of Croyland. The great abbey church became more and more destroyed, disappeared the transept, the choir and the free-standing bell tower on the east side of the church.

During the reign of King Edward VI. received Lord Edward Clinton Croyland as a possession, then the family Hunter. The remains of the abbey were fixed by the royalists in the 17th century and besieged and captured by Oliver Cromwell in May 1643. This resulted in further destruction. Last crashed at the beginning of the 18th century, the roof of the nave, and the ruin was now on the locals as a quarry. Only the northern nave survived as a parish church - this function was the aisle before the Reformation. Since part of the sacred structure of the Anglican church Crowland.

Facilities of the northern nave

• The rood screen is the Friar Simon Eresby attributed to the 15th century.
• From the stained glass windows of the Middle Ages only remnants have been preserved.
• Until his theft in 1982 was in a box on the inner tower wall a skull, which probably came from Abbot Theodore, who was slain on the altar 850.
• Six Gewölbeschlussteine ​​are very well preserved, including a " Green man ", a pagan fertility symbol.
• The bell tower of six bells, one of them from the 15th century. The bell is a very old tradition here; here should be the first rung bells Britain.

Others

• Jeremy Potter wrote under the title "The Mystery of the Abbot of Croyland " a historical crime novel set in the Reformation era.
• The Crowland Football Club was founded in 1919.