Lilleshall Abbey, West Midlands, England

Lilleshall Abbey was founded in the mid- 12th Century, when a group of Augustian Canons settled here.  The size of the monastic complex and the quality of its buildings, tell us that it must have had wealthy and powerful benefactors, but their names have been lost to history.  

We do know that the Abbey obtained an income from its farmland and from the ownership of two water mills, as well as property investments, which included buildings near Shrewsbury.  It was also able to collect tolls for the use of Atcham Bridge, over the river Severn.  It also owned four Granges, from which the estates were managed and farmed.

Even with its wealth, by the early 14th Century, the Abbey was heavily in debt.  The Abbot was accused of not consulting the community sufficiently about business matters, and selling wood from the forests on his own authority.  

The Abbey’s finances were also burdened by having sold to many corrodies, the medieval version of a pension plan.  Corrodies could be bought by anyone if they had the funds, which they would pay to the Abbey in cash, or in land.  In exchange, the Abbey would provide money, lodging, fuel and food for that person, until their death.  If the person died quickly, then the Abbey would make money but if they lived for a long time, the outlay could become expensive.

An inventory from the time of the Abbey’s suppression, in 1538, recorded that the property and goods of the Abbey were sold for a sum of £75 and that along with the Abbot, there were nine Canons and 43 servants living at the Abbey.  The inventory indicated that most of the buildings of the Abbey were to be stripped out and gutted, and there was to be a sale of the tile pavements, in both the Church and the Lady Chapel, as well as glass windows and stone floor flags in the Chapter house, plus the roof timbers, shingles and paving stones from the Cloister. The fact that Lilleshall is a ruin today is not the fault of time alone, but a direct result of the Reformation.