Newenham Abbey

Newenham Abbey stands in a quiet field south-west of Axminster, a ruined Cistercian monastery founded in 1247 by Reginald II de Mohun. The abbey was built on part of his manor and housed an abbot and twelve monks who prayed for his family. Its mother house was Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, and the monks followed the strict Cistercian way of life. In 1349 the Black Death killed almost all the monks, leaving only three survivors. By 1377 the community had grown again to seven monks. The abbey was dissolved in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Its annual income at the time was £231 14 shillings 4 pence. The last abbot, Gill, and nine monks received pensions after surrender. The site passed through several owners, including the Duke of Norfolk and Lord William Howard, before reaching the Petre family. By 1795 the buildings were already ruins when the antiquarian John Swete sketched them for his watercolour tours. Visitors today find grassy mounds and scattered stone fragments where the church and cloister once stood. Some dressed stones have been reused in Axminster buildings. The remains are protected as an Ancient Monument. The abbey’s quiet fields give a sense of its former isolation, far from the town’s streets. Two of Swete’s watercolours in the Devon Record Office show how the ruins looked in the 18th century. The site offers a glimpse of medieval monastic life now reduced to earthworks and scattered blocks.