Tarrant Abbey was a Cistercian nunnery in Tarrant Crawford, Dorset, England.Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Volume 3, Southern England (Cambridge University Press, 2006) page 596
History The abbey was founded as an independent monastery in 1186 by Ralph de Kahaines (of nearby Tarrant Keyneston) and has been identified as a possible site of "Camestrum", referred to by Gervase of Canterbury. The abbey was then re-founded in either 1228 or 1233 as a Cistercian nunnery, later supposedly the richest in England.
Two famous people are associated with the abbey. The first is Queen Joan, the wife of Alexander II of Scotland and daughter of King John of England, who is buried in the graveyard (supposedly in a golden coffin). The second is Bishop Richard Poore, builder of Salisbury Cathedral, who was baptised in the abbey church and later (in 1237) buried in it, as its second founder.
The church of St Mary the Virgin, the parish church of Tarrant Crawford, is all that remains of Tarrant Abbey. Saint Marys Church, Tarrant Crawford, Dorset. Diocese of Salisbury: All Schemes, Church Commissioners/Statistics, Church of England, 2011, p. 10, retrieved 31 March 2011. It was the lay church of the abbey and was built in the 12th century. It has now been designated as a Grade I listed building and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The site of the abbey is a Scheduled monument containing mostly buried remains.
Known Abbesses of Tarrant Abbey Claricia, elected about 1228 Emelina Maud, occurs 1240Chart. R. 24 Hen. III, m. 3. Isolda, occurs 1280 Elena, elected 1298Sarum Epis. Reg. Simon of Ghent, i, fol. 33. Anne, occurs 1351Cal. of Pap. Letters, iii, 407. Clemence de Cernyngton, occurs 1377Pat. 5 Ric. II, pt. 1, m. 31. Joan, occurs 14023 Hen. IV, pt. 2, m. 17 d. Avice, occurs 14045 Hen. IV, pt. 2, m. 29d. Edith Coker, died in 1535en. VIII, ix, 236. Margaret Lynde (uncertain) Margaret Russell, elected 1535, surrendered to Henry VIII in March 1539.Deeds of Surrender, No. 233
References