St John's Abbey, Colchester

St. John's Abbey

Gatehouse of St. John's Abbey
Monastery information
Other names	Colchester Abbey
Order	Order of St Benedict
Established	1096
Disestablished	1539
Dedicated to	St John the Baptist
Controlled churches	St. Giles
People
Founder(s)	Eudo Dapifer
Important associated figures	Thomas Marshall, John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk
Architecture
Status	Dissolved
Functional Status	Largely demolished
Heritage designation	Grade I
Site
Location	Colchester, Essex, United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°53′7.96″N 0°54′5.67″E / 51.8855444°N 0.9015750°E / 51.8855444; 0.9015750Coordinates: 51°53′7.96″N 0°54′5.67″E / 51.8855444°N 0.9015750°E / 51.8855444; 0.9015750
Visible remains	Abbey Gate, Precinct Wall, St Giles Church
Public access	yes

St John's Abbey, also called Colchester Abbey, was a Benedictine monastic institution in Colchester, Essex, founded in 1095. It was dissolved in 1539.

The site of the Abbey, to the south of the walled part of the town near the road to Mersea Island, was originally the location of a Saxon church dedicated to either St John the Baptist or St John the Evangelist. This church was supposedly where "miraculous voices" could be heard. The Saxon church was excavated in the 1970s, and was revealed to be a three celled structure built from Roman rubble. Originally it was thought that the church began life as a Late Roman martyrium, although it was later concluded that this was an error based on the fact that the church had been built on a former Roman cemetery, rather than as part of it. The final priest of the church was a man called Siric or Sigeric at the time of the Domesday Survey. Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066 the town eventually came into the possession of Eudo Dapifer, steward of William I and King William II. Eudo claimed to have witnessed a miracle at St John's Church in 1095, and used this as an excuse to found a Benedictine monastery on the site. He obtained the support of the Bishop of London in 1096, and began work on the monastery to the north of the original church.

The outline of the building was marked on the ground on the 29 August 1096, and construction took place between 1096 and 1115, with Eudo himself supposedly laying the first stone. The Abbey and its associated buildings would have been constructed out of Roman rubble quarried from the ruins of Roman Colchester, and lime kilns, used to create lime for mortar from baking oyster shells, have been found which would have been used by the builders. As Eudo was a layman he had no authority to found an Abbey, and so it was a priory in its early years. The first attempt to populate the monastery came when the Bishop of Rochester sent two monks from his diocese to the town, but they subsequently returned and were replaced by a larger contingent under the leadership of a man called Ralph. Ralph negotiated with Eudo the extent of the monastery's authority in the town, becoming its first Prior, although he and his monks later left after a dispute. Eudo despaired of the project, until he met with Abbot Stephen of York, who sent thirteen monks to Colchester from York, which roughly coincided with Pope Paschal II's granting of abbey status to the institution on 10 January 1104. The leader of the monks from York, Hugh, was ordained as the first Abbot of St John's Abbey by the Bishop of London. Upon Eudo’s death in 1120 on his estate at Préaux in Normandy his remains were brought to England to be interred at the Abbey on 28 February 1120.