The original monastery at BUCKFAST, Devon was founded in 1018 by a local nobleman and was from the first a Benedictine abbey. It seems that the abbey did not generate much wealth and by the end of the twelfth century it was probably in decline. Not much is known of the original community, although a list of the abbey’s property is given in Domesday Book. According to its value in Domesday Book, Buckfast Abbey ranked as one of the three poorest monasteries in the Wessex group.
In 1136 King Stephen (1135-54) assumed responsibility for the monastery and gave Buckfast Abbey to the Abbot of Savigny, who chose a monk from his own monastery to lead a group across the channel and establish the Savigniac rule at Buckfast. Buckfast Abbey thus followed the customs of the French mother house until, in 1147, the entire Savigniac group became part of the Cistercian Order.
By the later Middle Ages Buckfast Abbey had risen to be one of the wealthiest Cistercian abbeys in the south of England, and ran its own guest hall, almshouse and school. By the time of the Dissolution, however, the monastery was in some decline, housing only twenty-two monks, compared to the 180 monks and lay-brothers that probably made up in the community in the twelfth century. The abbey was surrendered in 1539 and a yeare later the manor of Buckfast and the site of the abbey were sold to Sir Thomas Dennys.
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