Shrewsbury Abbey

A beautiful day with the sun out all day. We visited Shrewsbury Abbey which was founded in 1083 as a Benedictine monastery by the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery. It grew to be one of the most important and influential abbeys in England and an important centre of pilgrimage. Its Chapter House saw one of the first democratic parliaments in the land and one of its Abbots pleaded with Henry IV and Harry Hotspur to try and avoid the bloody Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.

Although much of the Abbey was destroyed in the sixteenth century, the nave survived as a parish church and today serves as the mother church for the Parish of Holy Cross, and the civic church of Shrewsbury.

Shrewsbury Abbey is also the setting for the "Cadfael" mysteries by Ellis Peters, in which the fictional Brother Cadfael is embroiled in a series of historical murder mysteries. The character of Cadfael is a Welsh Benedictine monk living at the Abbey in the first half of the 12th century.