Cholsey Abbey

Cholsey Abbey was an Anglo-Saxon monastery founded between 993 and 997 by King Æthelred the Unready. It stood in the village of Cholsey, now in Oxfordshire but once part of Berkshire. The king gave the land, which he had acquired from his mother Ælfthryth, and dedicated the abbey to his half-brother Edward the Martyr. Germanus became its first abbot. By 1006 Viking raids may have destroyed part of the site, and by 1066 the abbey had vanished. The remains lie beneath the present churchyard of St Mary’s in Cholsey. Excavations in the 19th century uncovered fragments of stonework and graves. Local historians recognise these as traces of the old abbey church and its community. The site is one of the few Anglo-Saxon abbeys in southern England still marked by visible ruins. Visitors walk among gravestones in the churchyard and can see a low stone wall that once formed part of the abbey. A simple plaque explains the site’s history. The peaceful setting beside the River Thames adds to the sense of its past importance.