Canonsleigh Abbey

Canonsleigh Abbey in Burlescombe parish, Devon, was an Augustinian priory.

It was founded in about 1170 by Walter II de Claville,lord of the manor of Burlescombe, for the Augustinian Canons Regular as the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist. He appears to have been a descendant of Walter I de Claville (floruit 1086) the Domesday Book tenant of Burlescombe and of many other manors. The original Anglo-Saxon name of the site donated by Walter II, perhaps a sub-manor of Burlescombe, was "Leigh" (Domesday Book Leige), which after the foundation of the Abbey became known as "Canons' Leigh" and was Latinised by mediaeval scribes to Leigh Canonicorum (i.e. "Leigh of the canons"), now "Canonsleigh".

By 1284 the number of canons had declined to seven, and these were evicted in 1285 when the widow Maud de Lacy, Countess of Gloucester(d.1289), formerly the wife of Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester(d.1262), refounded the establishment as a nunnery as the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Etheldreda. In 1286 the abbess was granted licence to hold weekly markets. It was not especially wealthy. The number of historical records that survive for this establishment is not large which limits our knowledge of its history. However a recent article shows how it is still possible to describe some aspects of Canonsleigh's story in detail.

Among the possessions of Canonsleigh Abbey were the following:

It was suppressed in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

In September 1546 Sir Richard Grenville (c.1495-1550), of Stowe, Cornwall and Bideford, MP for Cornwall in 1529, together with Roger Blewett of Holcombe Rogus paid nearly £1,170 for the manors of Canonsleigh in Burlescombe and Tynyell in Landulph.

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