Luffield Abbey is a place in the very north of Buckinghamshire,

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 is on the border with

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

, close to

Biddlesden Biddlesden is a village and civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in north-west Buckinghamshire, England on the boundary with Northamptonshire. It is about east-north-east of Brackley, Northamptonshire and north-west of Buckingham. The Ri ...

and Silverstone.

Priory of Luffield

The place takes its name from the

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of ...

of Luffield, founded by Robert, 2nd Earl of Leicester some time before 1133. The priory was suppressed in 1494, by which time the priory was in ruins and there were only two monks. The lands were then granted to

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...

. There was no trace of the ancient abbey in a land survey conducted in 1732. The remains of the abbey were found on the edge of the south east runway of the airfield which is now part of Silverstone Circuit, about 200 metres north east of Stowe Corner. Markings of the foundations can be seen in discolorations in the grass on some aerial images taken in the early 1990s. Human remains were found near the abbey in the 1970s. They were found to be monks who had been sufferers of the plague and buried face down. Two corners of the circuit are named after the location: turn 1 is known as Abbey and turn 7 as Luffield.

Subsequent history

In 1551, after the

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, the manor was granted to Francis Throckmorton. In 1718 it passed to his descendant

Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham (24 October 1675 – 14 September 1749) was a British soldier and Whig politician. After serving as a junior officer under William III during the Williamite War in Ireland and during the Nine Years' War, h ...

Stowe Stowe may refer to: Places United Kingdom *Stowe, Buckinghamshire, a civil parish and former village **Stowe House **Stowe School * Stowe, Cornwall, in Kilkhampton parish * Stowe, Herefordshire, in the List of places in Herefordshire * Stowe, Linc ...

, and passed with the Stowe estates until the mid 19th century. Luffield Abbey was an

extra-parochial area In England and Wales, an extra-parochial area, extra-parochial place or extra-parochial district was a geographically defined area considered to be outside any ecclesiastical or civil parish. Anomalies in the parochial system meant they had no ch ...

, until 1844 partly in Northamptonshire and partly in Buckinghamshire. In 1844 the part in the former county was transferred to the Northamptonshire parish of Silverstone so that Luffield Abbey was entirely within Buckinghamshire thereafter. In 1858 it became a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

. The parish consisted of a single farm. By 1931 the population of the parish had dropped to 2.Vision of Britain website
/ref> After 1974 the civil parish was abolished and merged with

Lillingstone Dayrell Lillingstone Dayrell is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in Aylesbury Vale, about three and a half miles north of Buckingham, eight miles west of Milton Keynes and five miles south of Towcester. Lillingstone Dayrell with Luffield Ab ...

to form the civil parish of Lillingstone Dayrell with Luffield Abbey. The name was also given to the northernmost ward of the former Aylesbury Vale District Council.

References

Monasteries in Buckinghamshire Former civil parishes in Buckinghamshire {{buckinghamshire-geo-stub