The abbey remained in existence until 1537, when it was dissolved and Richard Harrison (the last Abbot) and three of his monks were executed by King Henry VIII following their implication (probably unjustly) in the Lincolnshire Rising of the previous year.

The abbey and manor of Kirkstead passed to the Duke of Suffolk, Henry VIII's brother-in-law, and later to the Clintons, Earls of Lincoln, who built a large country house.

By 1791 that too had gone, and all that remains today is a dramatic crag of masonry – a fragment of the south transept wall of the abbey church and the earthworks of the vast complex of buildings that once surrounded it.

The remainder was incorporated into the parish in 1987, so that Kirkstead is now the western part of Woodhall Spa between the village centre and the River Witham.

Finished and opened in 1968, it carries the B1191 as it runs from Horncastle to the A15 road just north of Dunsby St Andrew.