swuklink: Cerne Abbey, Cerne Abbas, <a href="BAAAGBYS.php">Dorset</a>

Cerne Abbas, Dorset, England OS Map Grid Ref: ST665011
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The story of the original founding of Cerne Abbey was recorded by an 11^th century French monk, Gotselin. His account mentions St. Augustine by name and refers to the village as "Cernel". By the early 12^th century when William of Malmesbury retold the story, the abbey was already well established.

Pilloried by the villagers of Cerne, St Augustine washed himself of the mud thrown by them and looking up saw God. The spot (now enclosed by St Augustine's Well) became holy and a monastery was built there probably by the 9^th century. It did not survive and was refounded in 987 as an abbey church of the Benedictine Order by Ethelmaer, the Earl of Cornwall.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, there were sixteen monks at the abbey. The expulsion of the monks led to the town's decline.

MARGARET OF ANJOU, the wife of Henry VI who fought to put her son Edward on the throne, visited the abbey in 1471; defeated at the battle of Towton she returned England via Weymouth after retreating to France for a while. It was at theabbey that Margaret and Edward learnt of the defeat and death of the Earl of Warwick at Barnet and that Henry was incarcerated in the Tower. They rallied an army but were defeated by the Yorkists at the battle of Tewkesbury.

St. Augustine walked up the valley of the river Cerne to preach to the Saxons who had settled there following the departure of the Roman legions from Britain about a century previously. The inhabitants of Cerne impressed their displeasure upon Augustine by tying cows' tails to his cloack and pelting him with mud. Augustine carried on up the valley of the Cerne and stopped at a spring to washed himself of the mud thrown by the villagers. When he had finished, he looked up and saw God. The spot, which is now enclosed by St Augustine's Well, became holy and the site of a monastery.

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