Crowland Abbey (Crowland)
Crowland Abbey is now used as the parish church of the little Lincolnshire town of Crowland, in the Fens.
Part of the Abbey, however, is an extraordinarily impressive ruin.
It is situated on the spot where St. Guthlac had his hermitage. Guthlac had been a soldier in the Mercian army, but at 24 renounced his warlike ways and entered the monastery at Repton.
After two years,he left the monastery and rowed to an island in the Fens where he lived as a solitary hermit for the next fifteen years until he died in 714.
The Abbey was founded by King Ethelbald as a Benedictine house around the spot, and his shrine became a place of considerable pilgrimage.
The ruins today include a superb West Front, South aisle and nave, and a Norman arch.
What is now used as the church is the North aisle of the nave.