Tavistock Abbey

The abbey church, dedicated to Our Lady and St Rumon, was destroyed by Danish raiders in 997[1] and rebuilt under Lyfing, the second abbot.

William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum (1718 edition in English) states as follows concerning the foundation:[4] In the reign of King Edgar an Earl call'd Ordulphus had a vision commanding him to build an oratory in a certain place mark'd out to him, which he did, making it large enough to contain 1,000 persons, and erecting habitations for several monks, whom he also plac'd there under an abbat.

The lands he and his kindred and friends gave to this monastery were: Tavistock, Midleton, Hatherlege (Hatherleigh), Berliton, Leghe, Dunethem, Chuvelin, Lankinghorn, Home, Werelgete, Orlege (Orleigh), Auri (Annery), Rame, Savyock, Pannastan, Tomebiry, Colbrok, Lege, Wulsitheton, and Clymesland.

The thirty-sixth abbot, John Dynynton, was granted leave in 1458 to use various pontificalia and the mitre, which latter gave him a seat in Parliament.

On 3 March 1539 the last abbot, John Peryn, together with twenty monks, surrendered the abbey to the king[8] and was granted a pension of a hundred pounds.

In 1810 John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford built to the designs of Sir Jeffry Wyattville a new residence named Endsleigh Cottage at Milton Abbot, near Tavistock, a former manor belonging to the abbey.

It was a large cottage orné used as a summer holiday home, still standing but sold in the 20th century by the Russell family.

King Henry I gave the hermits' territory to the abbey of Tavistock, which established a priory on Tresco that was abolished at the Reformation.