[2] It was founded as a house of Augustinian canons regular, or priests living in a monastic community and performing clerical duties.

[2] At its foundation, the whole of the manor and the hundred of Keynsham, which covered an area of 24,520 acres (9,920 ha), was conferred upon the abbey.

[3] This also included numerous parish properties such as the church of St. Mary and St. Peter and St. Paul, and the chapels of Brislington, Charlton, Felton (or Whitchurch), Publow and Pensford.

[2] The arms of the abbey included six golden clarions or trumpets on a red ground, from the de Clares, Earls of Gloucester.

[2] The canons were also admonished to keep better household accounts, attend prayers more regularly, and give up luxuries such as hunting dogs and dining outside the precinct.

He sent Richard Layton, one of his principal agents in church reform, on a tour of British monasteries and other institutions, with the aim of assessing their financial state and reviewing their documents and account books.

[2] Four years later, on 28 January 1539, John Tregonwell and William Petre, Henry VIII's privy councillor and Secretary of State, were sent to the abbey as "visitors".

The surrender of the abbey began a 400-year period of disassembly and robbing the site for suitable building materials.