St Benet's abbey on the River Bure, near Ludham, Norfolk, UK
The exact date of the founding of St Benet’s is uncertain but three possible dates have currency - 1019, 1031 and 1033 – of which the first has the strongest case, which is why the 1000th anniversary of St Benet’s was celebrated in 2019. Either way, it stands on a sand and gravel hummock, known as Cowholm which, back then, was surrounded by marshland and the sort of place favoured by religious communities seeking seclusion in pre-Conquest times, even if this one wasn’t entirely remote, because back then rivers were the main transport arteries and the Bure was a motorway equivalent. According to the 14th century Chronicle of John of Brompton, a hermit named Suneman settled there in the 9th century and he and others built a chapel dedicated to St Benedict. That was said to have been destroyed by Vikings, a not uncommon explanation for absence of firm evidence, but an earlier St Benet’s document, the Little Chronicle, has an entry of 870/871 says that “Suneman, the first inhabitant of the place St Benet at Holme, with his brothers, was killed”. These days, only the 14th century gatehouse intertwined with the tower of an 18th century drainage mill remain along with fragments of a church towards the eastern end of the site, all of it Grade I listed. The mill is an early one, and the oldest survivor in the Broads, which at various times drained the surrounding marsh and ground rapeseed for lamp oil. Gatehouse and windmill stand in mutual support, the gatehouse masonry footings providing a more solid foundation than those under most Broadland mills, while the mill itself holds up the gatehouse which the ravages of time would have otherwise toppled. Even so, the upper part of the gatehouse had had to be removed to allow the sails to turn.
Size: 4288px × 2848px
Photo credit: © John Worrall / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 11th, 14th, 18th, abbey, benets, broadland, broads, bure, century, cowholm, drainage, ecclesiastical, england, gatehouse, gateway, ludham, mill, norfolk, norman, remote, river, rural, st, tower, uk
