2-799-157 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

St. Benet's Abbey, 1844. Ruins of a medieval monastery of the Order of Saint Benedict, on the River Bure within the Broads in Norfolk. It '...appears at a very early period to have borne a high degree of importance as an ecclesiastical foundation, and to have assumed a very belligerent aspect as a fortified place. Founded by royalty (in the reign of Canute), we find it assuming the defensive, and stoutly resisting a very unceremonious visit from royalty, in the reign of [William] the Conqueror...All that now remains of this once magnificent edifice is the gateway, shown above, upon the walls of which a draining-mill has been erected. The ground-plan of the building and its appurtenances may, however, still be traced, and a melancholy contrast drawn, by the help of imagination, between its past grandeur and its present desolation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.