92: Thorney Abbey

“It is a little paradise, delightsome as heaven itself”. So wrote William of Malmesbury in the 12th century after a visit to Thorney Abbey. This institution was founded by Anglo-Saxon hermits more than 1,300 years ago, but the church has since echoed to the sounds of French and German.

Hermits? In search of the quiet life, were they?

Thorney Abbey Church.

There must be something in the fenland atmosphere that encourages religious devotion. In the mid seventh century the fens were isolated, and became home to a number of monasteries. Small islands such as Thorney, near modern Peterborough, as well as Crowland, Ramsey and Ely stood out in a watery landscape traversible mainly by boat and, later, by causeway. For all the isolation there is evidence Thorney was settled in ancient times. Bronze Age burial mounds have been found west of the island along with axes and spear heads, while coins from the Roman era suggest farming went on here. It was in 662AD that legend has it two brothers, Tancred and Tortred, settled here. Saxulf, Abbot of Medehamstead (later Peterborough) asked the king of the Mercians for land to allow some of his monks to live there and lead a contemplative life away from the temptation of towns. Rather like Saint Guthlac, who arrived at nearby Crowland by boat, the newcomers had to build a church from scratch. They did not live at the current abbey, but at Toneham Farm, a mile from the site, where they were later joined by their sister, Tona.

Followed by a period of rapid growth?

Thorney remained an ‘anchorage’ (anchorite was another term for hermit) so remained a small foundation. In 870 the rampaging Danes cut a swathe through East Anglia’s rich monasteries. Thorney fell victim along with neighbouring Crowland, some of whose monks hid along with their Thorney brethren in the woods. More than a century later Aethelwold, bishop of Westminster, refounded it. This time it was under the auspices of the mighty Benedictine order – and it was here to stay. The relics of St Botolph were brought from Boston, along with those of a Chatteris saint named Huna; they were prized as they attracted pilgrims who left gifts and donations. When the Normans took over after 1066, along with most major religious sites, Thorney was rebuilt in stone. It grew, becoming ever more magnificent. Although only the abbey church remains, there was extensive monastic building during the Middle Ages. At its height, the full extent of the abbey covered more than twice the size of the surviving buildings; a selfsufficient community. A Lady Chapel was added in the 13th century, along with a great gate, chapter house, abbot’s chamber and hall and a new dormitory in the early 1300s. William of Malmesbury could barely contain his admiration. Thorney was “fen-circled, yet rich in loftiest trees... here are orchards, there are vineyards. Nature vies with culture, and what is unknown to the one is produced by the other. And what of the glorious buildings, whose very size it is a wonder that the ground can support amid such marshes.”

It couldn’t last...

The abbey took a hammering from the Black Death in the 1340s, when 13 monks and up to 100 people in the community died. It recovered, and by the 1530s had an abbot and a complement of 20 monks, pulling in a decent income of £411 a year. But, on December 1, 1539, it surrendered to Henry VIII, whose Dissolution of the Monasteries was reaching its culmination. A familiar pattern ensued; the abbey was stripped of its treasures, its building materials taken to build parts of Cambridge colleges. The monastic buildings were left to rot, while the last abbot was given a £200 severance deal. The king sold Thorney to the earls of Bedford, whose family was to figure in the subsequent story.

So, it wasn’t the end?

The abbey church was on its last legs. By 1574 its roof had gone. It got a new lease of life during the 1630s when Francis, earl of Bedford, and his business partners changed the fens forever. They hired Dutchman Cornelius Vermuyden to drain thousands of acres of land for lucrative farmland. Vermuyden brought in Dutch and French-speaking Walloons to work, and many stayed to farm. These migrant workers were unpopular with many locals, who resented the loss of their way of life, and needed a place of their own to worship. The earl took their side. In 1639 he secured Thorney church for them, an agreement with the bishop of Ely saying “for the French and Dutch planters... the old ruins of the church and abbey... shall be finished and perfected for the receipt of them”. Stephen de Cursal and Father Ezekiel Danois preached in French and Latin for the next four decades.

Did the place thrive?

Thorney stayed isolated. Visitor John Byng described it in 1780 as “a little, melancholy out of the way place”, while the abbey was “a curious old clump of gothic solemnity”. However, from 1849, the seventh duke of Bedford began rebuilding the village in picturesque but practical fashion as a ‘model village’ to benefit tenants and the economy as well as his estate. Services in French were a distant memory by the 20th century, but during the second world war German prisoners-of-war were held nearby. In 1945-46 many were working the land, and had services in the church with their own pastor.

And today?

Major restorations were carried out at the end of the 1970s, following fundraising, and modern heating and lighting were added during the 1990s. Thorney was plagued by traffic on the main A47 road until a new bypass restored some of its former tranquillity. Once again, it is an attractive out-of-the-way spot.

Anything else?

Look out for the Thorney Tankyard. When the Victorian earl remodelled the village he had this extraordinary structure built to deal with water supply and sewerage. Its 96ft tower is now known as The Bedford Hall, off Station Road, and houses the village hall and museum.