An abbey is a monastery or convent of monks or nuns governed by an abbot or abbess, together with its church and associated buildings. Abbeys were among the most important architectural and economic institutions of medieval Europe, typically comprising a large church, cloister, chapter house, dormitory, refectory and farm buildings.
In England, the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII in the 1530s brought monastic life to an abrupt end. Many abbey buildings were demolished or left to decay, producing the romantic ruins later admired by Georgian landscape gardeners and painters. Others were sold to courtiers and converted into country houses, and names such as Woburn Abbey, Lacock Abbey and Newstead Abbey still recall their monastic origins. Some abbey churches survived as parish churches or cathedrals. The Gothic Revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries drew heavily on abbey architecture for houses, churches and furniture. For collectors, carved stone fragments, medieval tiles, ecclesiastical furniture and prints of abbeys form an appealing field, while houses with abbey origins often retain fascinating layers of medieval fabric beneath later alterations.
