Originally a Cistercian abbey, it was converted to a country house in the 16th century after King Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries.

[6] Abbot Doncaster obtained a pension of £25 a year, on the dissolution of the house in 1536 among the lesser monasteries, but it was voided on his speedy appointment to the rectory of Rotherham on 2 July 1536.

After its dissolution, the abbey gained a reputation of being haunted by the spectre of a giant monk carrying a skull.

In 1603, the Main Plot took place for Lady Arbella Stuart to replace King James VI and I on the throne.

In 1679, he constructed a new north wing on the site of the abbey church, containing reception rooms and a long gallery.

By the early 1900s,[10] the Rufford Abbey Estate comprised some 18,500 acres (75 km2), but had begun to feel the effects of rising running costs and reduced incomes.

Sir Albert Ball bought much of the land, and quickly sold the house to the eccentric aristocrat Harry Clifton.

[13] The Rufford Estate covered approximately twenty-nine square miles and, in addition to the ancient Liberty of Rufford, it included the parishes of Bilsthorpe, Eakring and most of Ollerton, Ompton, Boughton, Wellow, and extended into Blidworth, Edwinstowe, Egmanton, Farnsfield, Kirton, Tuxford, and Walesby.

In 1851, a gang of forty or so poachers assembled in Rufford Park as a mass action against what was perceived to be the unfair monopolising of game-hunting rights by wealthy landowners.

Four of the poachers' ringleaders were arrested and each subsequently sentenced to deportation and fourteen years of penal servitude for manslaughter.

[16][17] One of, if not the, earliest recordings is a 1907 performance by Joseph Taylor, collected on wax cylinder by the musicologist Percy Grainger in 1907.

The abbey was the setting for Helen Cresswell's children's book (1984) and later TV series called The Secret World of Polly Flint (1987).