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Cistercian Abbeys: BIDDLESDON Name: BIDDLESDON Location: nr Brackley
County: Buckinghamshire The abbey of Biddlesdon was founded in 1147
by Arnold de Bois (or de Bosco), Steward of Robert de Beaumont,
earl
of Leicester, and one of the keepers of the royal forest.(1) The
first monks were probably sent from the abbey of Garendon
which was the earl of Leicester’s own foundation.(2) The
original endowment was confirmed by Robert, earl of Leicester,
by King
Stephen
and Henry II, by Theobold of Canterbury and Robert of Lincoln.(3) It
was a small monastery, inhabited only by eleven monks in 1535.(4) At
the time of the Dissolution the net annual income of the abbey
was valued at £125 and thus should have fallen with the
smaller monasteries in 1536. In fact the house was not surrendered
until
September 1538; dissolution may well have been delayed by the payment
of a fine on the part of the abbey.(5) Following
the Dissolution the
abbey was bought by Sir Robert Peckham. He constructed a house
which incorporated parts of the monastic buildings and began demolition
of the church.(6) Around 1731
the house was fully demolished by its owner, Henry Sayer, to make
way for the construction of a new
house:
Biddlesdon Park.(7) Today there
are no visible remains of the abbey and the site is still occupied
by the eighteenth-century country
house; the property is privately owned and not accessible to the
public.
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