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The Hartland abbey and Gardens date c1157. and consecrated by Bishop Bartholomew of Exeter in 1160AD. as a monastery of the regular canons of the Order of St Augustine of Hippo, the monastery serves St. Nectan's Church, Stoke-the parish church of Hartland often referred to as the 'Cathedral of North Devon'. One mile from the Abbey is Hartland Quay and the Atlantic (west) coast. Nectan, as also associated with St. Boniface & King Nectan mac Derile of the Picts (d. 724), also with Saint Moluag. The Dal Riada were originally a tribe of North Antrim in Ireland. Among Pictish name, It is cognate with Old Welsh "Neithon" and Irish "Nechtan". Some of the variation in spelling may be due to shifts in pronunciation. (Naiton in Bede).
Many monasteries, Cromarty, though not founded by the king, placed themselves under royal patronage in order to share his protection, and so became possessions of the Crown. This custom of the Merovingian rulers was taken as a precedent by the French kings for rewarding laymen with abbeys, or giving them to bishops in commendam. St. Boniface and later Hincmar of Reims picture most dismally the consequent downfall of church discipline, and though St. Boniface tried zealously and even successfully to reform the Frankish Church. Louis the Pious aided St. Benedict of Aniane in his endeavours to reform the monastic life. In the Middle Ages, the fiefdom changed to homage and fealty.. By 750, the Irish Canons became a collection of the tithe. Until the Confirmation of the Charters, 1297 Pope Boniface VIII had just issued Clericos Laicos, forbidding clergy from paying taxes to a secular ruler, and Edward's English vassals refused to provide assistance in his campaigns in Flanders. To acquire money, Edward laid an impost on English wool, and also forced the nobility to grant an aid. The barons armed themselves against Edward, who consequently confirmed the various charters of his predecessors.
HARTLAND ABBEY, the seate of Colonel William Lewis Stucley, stands near Stoke village, and the church, in the narrow.vale, whose sloping sides are richly mantled with hanging woods and form a spacious deer park, through which a rivulet winds westward to the sea, about a mile below. This abbey, called in ancient writings the Monastery of St. Nectan, was founded by Githa, wife of Earl Godwin, for canons secular; but in the reign of Henry II., Geoffrey de Dinant, then lord of the manor, consented that they should be changed into canons regular, and gave them the church of Stoke Nectan, now the parish church. At the dissolution of the abbey, its revenues were valued at £326 13s. 21/2d. per annum. Its site was granted, with the manor in 1545, to William Abbott, and afterwards passed, by heiresses to the Lutterrells and Orchards. The mansion was nearly all rebuilt about the yeare 1800 by the late Paul Orchard, Esq., and includes the site and some portions of the ancient abbey, the cloister's now forming the basement story of the east and west fronts. When making these improvements, several fragments of richly ornamented mouldings, and a monument of a crusader were dug up.
The foundation of the Abbey originated through a gift of Lord Dynham, lord of the manor of Hartland and a representative of the Norman family, who took over this area after the Norman Conquest. Henry VIII made a gift of the Abbey to the sergeant of his wine cellar, William Abbott. In 1600, the first of three heiresses, Catherine Abbott, married Nicholas Luttrell of Dunster Castle in Somerset and the Abbey remained in that family for some 100 years. In 1704, the second heiress, Mary Luttrell, married Paul Orchard, a son of Charles Orchard of Aldercombe, Kilkhampton. Sir George Stucley whose great-grandmother was the third heiress, Anne Orchard, who moved into the house in 1845.
The Abbey remained as a monastery until 1539 when it became the last monastery in the country to be Dissolved by Henry VIII. and made a gift of the Abbey to the Sergeant of his Wine Cellar at Hampton Court, Mr. William Abbot. In 1583 the first of three heiresses, Prudence Abbot, married Andrew Luttrell of Dunster Castle in Somerset and the Abbey remained in that family for some 100 years.