Crowland Abbey

Overview and History

Crowland Abbey is a monastic church, now serving as the parish church alongside the ruins of the original abbey church. The building dates primarily from around 1165, with major additions around 1260 and further work in the 14th and 15th centuries. It underwent restoration in 1743, 1860, 1887–91, and during the 20th century. The church originally had a cruciform plan with a crossing tower and north-west tower. What survives today includes fragmentary remains of the west end of the south aisle, the ruined nave with an intact north aisle featuring a west porch with parvise (an upper room), the north-west tower with spire, and a north-west vestry.

Materials and Construction

The abbey is constructed of limestone ashlar and rubble, with some Purbeck marble dressings. The roof is lead, hidden behind parapets.

West Front of South Aisle (circa 1165)

The fragmentary west front of the south aisle dates from around 1165. It features a plinth and four tiers of fragmentary blind arcades flanked by shafts. The shaft on the left was originally one of two that flanked a 12th-century buttress, now embedded within a large 15th-century buttress. This shaft has small scalloped and foliate capitals and shaft rings.

The lowest tier of blind arcading consists of five small semi-circular arches decorated with chevron ornament and weathered scalloped capitals. Above this runs a billeted string course, with another blind arcade above featuring five pointed arches with roll-moulded heads and weathered carved capitals. The third tier has a fragmentary blind arcade with three intersecting semi-circular-headed arches, scalloped capitals, and intact supporting shafts. The uppermost tier contains a very fragmentary blind arcade with a single roll-moulded, semi-circular-headed arch with a weathered capital. The left-hand nook shaft continues upward above this level.

West Front of Main Vessel of Nave (circa 1260)

The west front of the main vessel of the nave dates from around 1260 and is flanked by large multi-stage buttresses from the mid-15th century. These buttresses have three tiers of blind panelled tracery and are crowned with tall rectangular pinnacles featuring small ornate flyers.

The north wall of the south buttress contains a blocked doorway with a pointed moulded head and broad chamfered jambs. This doorway originally led to a cell attached to the south, on the site of St Guthlac's original foundation. Above the doorway is a blocked pointed window with a single mullion. Higher still are fragmentary wavy cusped friezes, with a similar frieze on the north buttress. Embedded in the north-east corner of the south buttress and the south-east corner of the north buttress are 12th-century nook shafts with shaft rings.

The 13th-century west front proper features a moulded plinth and a large central pointed doorway with a richly moulded head incorporating fillets, a hood mould, and head label stops. A slender 19th-century quatrefoiled and filleted trumeau (central pier) supports two smaller pointed arches with fragmentary cusping, hood moulds with stiff-leaf decoration, and head label stops. A quatrefoil in the tympanum contains sculpted scenes from the life of St Guthlac. The jambs have fragmentary and missing Purbeck marble shafts with crocket capitals. To the right of the doorway is a small empty niche, with a small fragmentary figure to its left. Another small fragmentary figure appears to the left of the doorway.

The spandrels of the doorway each contain a single canopy with foliate capitals and ornate gablets. A fragmentary trefoil appears immediately to the right of the left canopy. Beyond each canopy is a single tall blind arch with a richly moulded trefoil head, moulded ribbed and crocketed capitals. Only the right-hand shaft of the right arch survives, and it has shaft rings. Each trefoil head is flanked by small quatrefoils. Under the left arch is a fragmentary figure of Synagoga (a personification of the Synagogue) standing on a pedestal decorated with a stylised tree and a figure. The right arch contains a pedestal carved with an angel.

Above the doorway runs a string course decorated with small sculptural motifs and large billet moulding. The large pointed west window above has a richly moulded surround and slender jambs, some no longer intact, with crocket and stiff-leaf capitals. The tracery in the head is fragmentary, as are the hood mould and head label stops. The window is flanked by tall blind arched panels supported on crocket and stiff-leaf capitals, with hood moulds and single head label stops. Each panel contains two tiers of paired niches housing standing figures of saints on tall polygonal billeted pedestals, beneath semi-circular canopies with crocketed gablets and grotesque head and foliate label stops.

Two tiers of niches appear in the spandrels and above the west window. The spandrel niches contain two saints on each side beneath ornate traceried canopies. Originally ten ornate niches stood above the window, their lengths staggered according to the line of the spandrels. Two of the niches to the right have been destroyed and no longer contain their figures. Above all this runs a fragmentary moulded eaves course with grotesque head and foliate motifs.

North-West Tower and Porch

The north-west tower to the north is flanked by large 15th-century blind traceried buttresses, the one on the right featuring an ornate niche. These buttresses are joined by a wall from which projects a two-storey mid-15th-century rectangular porch. This porch is said to encase a portion of the 12th-century west front of the north aisle, of similar design to that of the south aisle.

The west doorway of the porch has a shallow pointed head, a continuous moulded surround, and an elongated hood mould. Above, on the west, north, and south sides, are single windows with shallow pointed heads and three cusped lights. The porch is flanked by single-storey diagonal buttresses with ornate flyers and is crowned by moulded eaves with foliate motifs, a parapet, and a cross finial. An illegible 18th-century monument appears on the south side.

The interior of the porch has flanking stone benches. Slender responds support the fragmentary blind traceried springers of a fan vault that no longer exists, along with wall ribs. The north and south doorways have flattened pointed heads, the former with a plank door and the latter with an iron gateway. The richly moulded 15th-century west doorway has a shallow pointed head, hood mould, slender outer jambs, 18th-century block capitals, and double panel doors. The soffit features blind panel tracery.

The tower rises above and behind the porch. On the west side is a large pointed window with six ogee-headed cusped lights, panel tracery, and a hood mould. A large pointed south window has been blocked and fitted with a three-light mullion window. The north side features a rectangular 18th-century battlemented vestry with a doorway to the right (with a four-centred head and plank door) and two three-light mullion windows to the left.

Above, set back, the tower has a section of blind panelling to the right of a large pointed window restored in the 19th century, with five cusped ogee-headed lights, a transom, panel tracery, and a hood mould. A similar window appears on the east side. Above this, on all four sides, runs a band of blind arcading, with the rectangular bell stage above containing two sets of three arches, the central arch of each set being blind. A clock is set on the west side. Above this are moulded eaves and a parapet.

The squat octagonal ashlar spire features four lucarnes (dormer windows), each with a triangular head and two triangular-headed lights with a transom. Four small rectangular openings appear at the apex, with a finial topped by a weathervane.

North Side and North Aisle

The north side features a line of three projecting late 14th-century north chapels, somewhat remodelled in the mid-15th century and restored in 1743 and 1860. These have a plinth, sill band, and regularly placed two-stage buttresses from 1743, built with stone from the dismantled south aisle. To the right is a two-light mullion window with another above. Beyond are four pointed windows, each with four pointed cusped lights, panel tracery, hood mould, and on the easternmost window, label stops.

The east end of the north aisle has a blocked pointed opening that originally led to a chapel. The north side of the aisle proper dates from the early 15th century and has three pointed windows, each with four cusped ogee-headed lights, panel tracery, and hood moulds.

The east end encloses the original north aisle following the demolition of the transept in the 16th century and was restored in the 18th and 19th centuries. It features a pointed 19th-century east window with four cusped ogee-headed lights, panel tracery, hood mould, and label stops. To the left is a fragmentary 15th-century archway with a richly moulded head and blind panelling on the soffit.

Interior

Crossing Tower and Pulpitum

Large triple western responds of the crossing tower date from around 1165 and have beaded scalloped capitals with a chevroned semi-circular arch. Beneath this is a late 14th-century pulpitum (screen separating nave from choir). According to the antiquarian William Stukeley, this originally stood at the east end of the church and was moved to this position at the Dissolution. The screen has two pointed richly moulded doorways with cusped oculi in the spandrels, blind panelling, and a quatrefoil frieze above.

Main Vessel of Nave

The interior of the main vessel of the nave contains fragmentary blocked arcading and a triforium from around 1160, with roll-moulded heads and flat radially placed leaf motifs. Set back to the left is a 19th-century pointed doorway with a hood mould and plank door. Above this is a cusped pointed 19th-century window.

Six and a half bays of the north arcade date from around 1430 and are now blocked. They have pointed heads, continuously moulded piers, and wall shafts rising to the base of the clerestory, where fragmentary remains of a clerestory passage are visible. The arcade was blocked in 1743 when the nave became too derelict to serve as the parish church. Windows were inserted at that time and restored in the 19th century. The window in the second bay from the east has a triangular head and two lights. The fourth and fifth bays from the east each have a pointed window with three pointed lights and panel tracery. The next bay to the west has two small pointed cusped windows, with a pointed window above containing two pointed cusped lights. To the left are the springers of non-existent lierne vaults for two bays.

South Aisle

The south aisle retains three of the westernmost piers, with continuous mouldings carried up without capitals, and hood moulds. Stumps of the fourth and sixth piers from the west survive, along with a fragmentary eastern respond revealing 12th-century masonry. The east side of the west front had pointed blind arches flanking the doorway with fragmentary nook shafts and moulded capitals. A tomb stone from around 1422 is set in the north arch, featuring a floreated cross and the inscription: 'Peter (offer) prayers for me, Peter Pious shepherd (pray) for me. Pray for the soul of John Tomson.'

The east side of the south-west wall has a blind semi-circular opening with scalloped capitals and shafts.

Tower Interior

The interior of the north aisle tower features a roll-moulded pointed west doorway with a band of blind traceried panelling above. Small doorways provide access to the route across the front of the window. A blocked pointed arch to the south is richly moulded with cusped panelling in the soffit. Above this is an upper blind richly moulded pointed opening. The north doorway has a pointed head and a continuously roll-moulded surround, with an inner panelled door. In the inner west return wall of the north doorway is another doorway with a pointed head, chamfered surround, and plank door.

Large north and east windows have blind panelling in each soffit. The tall pointed mid-15th-century eastern tower arch has blind panelling in its soffit. A mid-12th-century drum font with roll mouldings is embedded in the 15th-century south jamb, with a shallow pointed cusped head above and an inner lierne vault on the underside, flanked by blind panels. The tower is roofed with a tierceron vault.

North Arcade and Chapels

The six-bay north arcade is blocked and features numerous slender shafts without capitals running straight into a lierne vault with ornate bosses. Similar respond piers to the north feature three late 14th-century chapels in the westernmost bays, remodelled in the 15th century. The central chapel is flanked by a vestry to the west and an organ chamber to the east. All three have fragmentary springers of a former ornate rib vault. Doorways lead from the central chapel into the flanking chapels, with a rectangular opening above to the east.

Chancel and East End

The pointed chancel arch was heavily restored in the 19th century and has two continuous moulded orders. The south wall east of the chancel arch shows the outline of a blocked arcade bay.

The traceried chancel screen, formerly a parclose screen to the Lady Chapel in the north transept, dates from the early 15th century and was heavily restored in the 19th century. The communion rail is plain Georgian work. The reredos, choir stalls, lectern, and chairs date from the 19th century.

Furnishings and Monuments

The church contains a 15th-century octagonal font with blind traceried panelling. Two curved sets of wrought-iron railings, one with a locked gate, are attached to the west wall of the tower.

Monuments include:

• A Gothic ashlar monument to William Wyche, died 1807
• A painted wooden board to Abraham Baly, died 1704, with a long inscription
• A black and white marble monument with a cherub, to Zachariah Forargue, died 1778
• A stone monument with gold paint, to Martha Forargue, died 1792
• A gilded stone monument with foliate decoration, to Ann Crawford, died 1731
• A gravestone to Master Mason William of Warrington, mid-14th century, with a figure of a mason holding dividers and a set square, with an inscription running round the edge
• A white marble monument to William Hill, died 1792
• A small Anglo-Saxon stone inscribed with geometric decoration
• Another fragment with Anglo-Saxon fish-scale decoration
• A stone monument to Thomas Robartts, died 1700
• A grey marble monument with an open pediment and foliate apron, to Abraham Egarr, died 1744
• An ornate stone monument with a cherub, to Elizabeth Hurry, died 1783
• A monument with a segmental open pediment to Elizabeth Hurry, died 1742
• A stone monument with two cherubs and a shell-shaped apron, to Henry Hurry, died 1745
• A stone monument with an urn, to William Cowling, died 1813

The abbey is scheduled as Ancient Monument No. 263.