Sibton Abbey

Sibton Abbey, an early Cistercian abbey located near Yoxford, Suffolk, was founded about 1150 by William de Chesney, High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. A sister house of Warden Abbey, near Bedford, Bedfordshire, Sibton Abbey was the only Cistercian abbey in East Anglia.Sibton Abbey was founded by the normal complement of 13 monks, but by the thirteenth century the numbers of monks and lay brothers had grown, and the Abbey had grown rich, owning lands across southeast England, including estates in Norfolk, Suffolk and on the borders of Cambridgeshire, as well as within 10 parishes of the city of Norwich. From the beginning of the thirteenth century the Abbey also hosted a hospital at its gate dedicated to St. John the Baptist which cared for the sick. Sibton's architectural style was in the austere Cistercian original model.In the intervening years, Sibton grew rich on proceeds from the wool trade, which built so many grand English churches. Although Suffolk wool wasn't of the finest quality, according to some historians, often stained with tar or grease, it was nevertheless in great demand, particularly in East Anglia, which had many Flemish weavers anxious to convert it into exportable cloth.At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Sibton Abbey's annual income was £250, a hefty sum which should have bought the Abbey an additional couple of years before it was dissolved. But the recently appointed Abbot William Flatbury, installed at the insistence of the Duke of Norfolk, apparently was prevailed upon by the Duke and by Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, to hasten the Dissolution, and yield the jewel to those in Royal favour. The engineering of Flatbury's appointment, according to a contemporaneous observer, had been done with the "connivance of Cromwell on purpose to bring about a speedy surrender."