St Benet's Abbey

I dropped W in Norwich this morning as she was going to London for the day.  Afterwards I decided to have a drive out to the Broads and in particular, St Benet's Abbey.  The site is known to have been settled by religious hermits in the 9th Century but the Abbey was established in the 1020's when the land was granted to the holy men by King Cnut.  Uniquely, it survived the closing of the monasteries by Henry VIII in the 1530's but although it never officially closed the last monks left in 1545.  The stone and flint was valuable so was sold off for other buildings so little is left of the Abbey today.  What can be seen are a few foundations and this, the remains of a gatehouse into which a windmill was built in the 1720's.

It is possible to freely wander around the site and into the building; I've added an extra of the inside of the mill showing how it used the remains of the gatehouse for support.