Initially Savigniac and later Cistercian, the abbey was founded in the 1130s by Hugh Malbank, Baron of Nantwich, and was also associated with Ranulf de Gernons, Earl of Chester.

From that date until its dissolution in 1538, it was frequently in royal custody, and acquired a reputation for poor discipline and violent disputes with both lay people and other abbeys.

[2][4] The site given for the monastery buildings was a wooded area by the large lake of Comber Mere, a peaceful and isolated location near the Shropshire border, suitable for the austere Savigniac order.

[4] Edward I's war against Wales of 1282–83 drew heavily on Cheshire and placed additional strain on the monastery; it ran so low on food stores in 1283 that it was exempted from providing supplies for the army and once again removed from the abbot's management.

[4][14] Burnell contributed £213 towards the abbey's needs – a sum considerably in excess of its annual income, estimated in 1318 at £130 14s 11d – receiving lands in Monks Coppenhall (now Crewe) in return.

[4][21][23] In August 1539, the abbey and its estates, which had been revalued at £275 17s 111⁄2d, were granted to Sir George Cotton, an esquire of the body to Henry VIII, and his wife, Mary.

[25][26][1] His remodelling is commemorated by a stone tablet, uncovered in 1795, which reads: The abbey under his ownership is the subject of what is believed to be the earliest country house poem, "To Richard Cotton, Esq.," composed by Geoffrey Whitney in 1586.

It compares the abbey to a beehive:[28] Richard Cotton's alterations to the Great Hall (now the library) are thought to include concealing the hammerbeam roof with a plaster ceiling and putting in a fireplace.

The room's existing screen is believed to date from somewhat later; it is known to have been moved at some point from its original northern position to the south side of the Hall, where it now stands.

The earliest, an engraving by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck dating from 1727, shows the east face, formerly the monastery's cloisters, arcades from which are still present attached to the centre of the façade.

[25] He writes: The house appears to have remained little altered from its 16th-century form when Johnson visited, possibly in part because the Cottons had acquired by marriage the much larger property of Lleweni Hall in Denbighshire, Wales.

[32] Between 1814 and 1821, he faced the house with cement render and added Gothic ornamentation, including castellations and pointed arches surrounding the windows.

"[25] The first Viscount Combermere is said to have been the model for W. M. Thackeray's Sir George Tufto in The Book of Snobs,[25][33] and architectural historians Peter de Figueiredo and Julian Treuherz consider his alterations to "exhibit a love of empty-headed show.

"[25] The first viscount later commissioned two projects to remodel the abbey completely; the first, of around 1829, employed Irish architects Sir Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison, and the second, Edward Blore.

A total of £10,000-worth of alterations were made for her stays, including installing hot water and an electric bell system; the costs were met by the Emperor.

[39] Robert Stapleton-Cotton, 3rd Viscount Combermere led a "rackety life" and further eroded the family's wealth; he tried without success to sell the estate in 1893.

[36] During the Second World War, the house was used as a hospital and school, and the Wrenbury Home Guard – of which Sir Kenneth was a member – did fieldcraft training exercises in the park.

[36][40] His only son, writer and MP Anthony Crossley, had been killed in an aeroplane crash shortly before the war, and when Sir Kenneth died in 1957, the estate passed to his granddaughter, Penelope Callander, later Lady Lindsay.

[43][47] Based on an inspection in May 2012, English Heritage fears that the north wing is in considerable danger of falling down, which would be likely to seriously damage the oldest parts of the abbey.

[47][48] Attempts to gain planning permission to build a village of a hundred houses on 14 acres (57,000 m2) of greenfield estate land, with the stated aim of funding restoration of the abbey, met with substantial opposition and were turned down in 2005.

[49] A subsequent scheme to build 43 houses on a greenfield site south of the nearby small village of Aston, as an "enabling development" to fund repairs to the north wing, again met with opposition; it was rejected by Cheshire East in April 2012 for having "insufficient public benefit ... to outweigh the harm in terms of new residential development in the Open Countryside.

[45][47] Little remains of the original monastic buildings, although remnants of medieval stonework from an arch are concealed in a cupboard in the house, and pieces of carved stone have been found in the grounds.

[25][1] Hammerbeam roofs are rare in Cheshire; the only other known examples are at Vale Royal Abbey and St Nicholas' Chapel in the park of Cholmondeley Castle.

In the centre is a projecting gabled single-storey porch bearing a stone panel with the Cotton family arms; it is flanked by octagonal turrets.

[26] The room is crossed by two screens, each flanked with clustered columns whose "delicate"[25] capitals are decorated with lilies and leaves, described as acanthus or lotus.

[1] The passage also has clustered columns rising to cast-iron arches in the Perpendicular Gothic style, which de Figueiredo and Treuherz liken to those in the early-19th-century version of Eaton Hall by William Porden.

The "handsome and boldly-carved design"[25] includes pilasters with lions on the bases flanking paired double doors with arched heads and satyrs in the spandrels, and also incorporates carved cherubs and grotesques, and painted panels to the external (landing) face; it is surmounted by a central emblem.

[25][26][1] The carved wooden panelling above the stone fireplace incorporates four painted portraits, including Henry VIII and Sir George Cotton, and dates from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Westbury Manor, Long Island, USA now has a gate screen thought to be by Robert Bakewell, originally from Combermere's gardens.

[64] An area of 169 acres (68.5 ha) of the mere and its surrounding land has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its swamp and fen environments, as well as its importance for birds.