Wellow Abbey was an abbey in
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
,
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 ...
. It was founded about 1110 by
Henry I of England
Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin and the liberal arts. On William's death in ...
, as a house of
Austin canons
Canons regular are priests who live in community under a rule ( and canon in greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by a ...
. The date of foundation is not known precisely. It was also known as Grimsby Abbey.
The last abbot was Robert Whitgift, uncle of
John Whitgift
John Whitgift (c. 1530 – 29 February 1604) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 8 ...
. The Abbey was dissolved in 1536, and he was given a pension.
[Powel Mills Dawley, ''John Whitgift and the English Reformation'' (1955), p. 25.]
The abbey was built on a hill, and its grounds covered around ten acres, surrounded by a wall and ditch.
Buildings included a grange for the abbot and a kitchen, which was built above a spring that also supplied water to a mill at the base of the hill.
At dissolution, its possessions included more than seven hundred acres of land.
References
Monasteries in Lincolnshire
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