Radmore Abbey was a cistercian abbey near

Cannock Wood Cannock Wood is a village and civil parish in the Cannock Chase district of Staffordshire, England. The village is situated around east of Cannock, the same distance south of Rugeley, and north of Burntwood. According to the 2011 Census, the p ...

, Staffordshire,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, which is located north of

Burntwood Burntwood is a former mining town and civil parish in the Lichfield District in Staffordshire, England, approximately west of Lichfield and north east of Brownhills. The town had a population of 26,049 and forms part of Lichfield distric ...

and south of

Rugeley Rugeley ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cannock Chase District in Staffordshire, England. It lies on the north-eastern edge of Cannock Chase next to the River Trent; it is situated north of Lichfield, south-east of Stafford, nort ...

. Originally a hermitage, the abbey did not exist for long, being exchanged for lands in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

after little more than ten years.

History

The abbey began as a hermitage, set up in the early 1130s by King Stephan, near the hamlet of

. This grant was confirmed by

Roger de Clinton Roger de Clinton (died 1148) was a medieval Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. He was responsible for organising a new grid street plan for the town of Lichfield in the 12th century which survives to this day. Life Clinton was the nephew of Geo ...

Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield The Bishop of Lichfield is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers 4,516 km2 (1,744 sq. mi.) of the counties of Powys, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and West M ...

, who gave the hermits permission to follow a rule of their choosing. Around 1143, the hermits secured a similar charter from Empress Matilda. In doing so, they were presumably trying to secure their future whatever the result of the

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. The hermits joined the

Cistercian order The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Sain ...

sometime in the 1140s, dedicating their

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The con ...

to Saint Mary. Several grants, including land in Staffordshire and

, were made to the abbey and in 1153 Matilda's son, Henry, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, became a benefactor. The abbey only lasted until the winter of 1154, when the monks petitioned the Henry, now king Henry II, for grant of land on another site. Because of disputes with local foresters, the monks were finding Radmore increasingly unsuitable. The king exchanged the

royal manor The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...

at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire for the abbey and the monks established

Stoneleigh Abbey Stoneleigh Abbey is an English country house and estate situated south of Coventry. Nearby is the village of Stoneleigh, Warwickshire. The Abbey itself is a Grade I listed building. History In 1154 Henry II granted land in the Forest of Arden ...

in June 1155, with Radmore becoming a royal hunting lodge.

References

Monasteries in Staffordshire Cannock {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub