Thorney Abbey

A striking parish church incorporating the surviving nave of a medieval Benedictine abbey at the heart of a historic fen island.

What survives of the great Benedictine monastery is now the parish church, so its history can still be experienced in a living place of worship. The building invites visitors to imagine the scale of the former abbey and the importance of monastic communities in the medieval Fens. Its stonework, setting and later history also help explain the evolution of Thorney itself. A walk through the village connects the church to the planned streets and open agricultural landscape that developed after the abbey’s medieval heyday.