Abbey Habit

AM visiting Kenilworth, Warwickshire, for five days, staying in an inn in the old town.

Nearby are the ruins of St Mary's Abbey, which started as an Augustinian priory in the early 1100s.

It expanded over the centuries, being upgraded to abbey status in 1447, only to be confiscated by Henry VIII in 1538 as part of his Dissolution of the Monasteries.

I am in Kenilworth for a chess tournament, the location of which requires me to walk through the abbey ruins and surrounding fields at least twice a day.

Most of the abbey buildings were either dismantled to repair and build other properties in Kenilworth, or slowly fell into disrepair and ruin.

An exception is a stone barn, which may originally have been a hall but later housed cattle.

St Mary's 'barn'