Haughmond Abbey - Dissolution and After

Dissolution and After

Initially intended to assess the value of church properties, the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535 reckoned the net annual value of Haughmond at £259 13s. 7¼d. The values formed a basis for the £200 threshold set by the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act of 1536, which left Haughmond and Lilleshall in being. However, the precedent and the storm of criticism unleashed by the dissolution of the majority of religious houses intimidated many of the more successful institutions into surrender. Haughmond took this step in September 1539, the year before the Second Act of Dissolution.

The abbot, Thomas Corveser, and ten canons signed the deed of surrender, each of them receiving a generous pension: the abbot £40 a year and the canons from £5 6s. 8d. to £6 each. The annual income was reckoned at more than £350, as the new estimate included the abbey site and the granges of Homebarn and Sundorne, missed in earlier calculations.

In 1540 the abbey site was sold to Sir Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall, Staffordshire. Only two years later, Littleton sold it to Sir Rowland Hill, who became Lord Mayor of London in 1547, and soon after sold Haughmond to the Barker family. During this period the Abbots Hall and adjoining rooms were converted into a private residence, although the church and dormitory were already being plundered for building stone. Some of the other buildings around the little cloister continued as private accommodation, with the Little Cloister becoming a formal garden, up until the English Civil War.

There was a fire during the Civil War and it left the hands of the wealthy being turned over for use as a farm, a small cottage still stood in the area of the former abbots kitchen when the ruins were placed in the guardianship of the Office of Works in 1933. Today English Heritage looks after the site.