Photographs of Thornton Abbey

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Thornton Abbey was founded in 1139 on the banks of the Humber Estuary in North Lincolnshire by the Augustinians. The present Abbey was built in the 14th Century. The Gatehouse, built in 1382, is one of the largest ever built, and was probably used for reception rooms by the Abbot. Most of the Abbey's income came from the export of wool to the Low Countries and it became one of the wealthiest monasteries in the country.
Much was demolished as part of the reformation and the Gatehouse remains well preserved, but little remains of the main building, except for three walls of the chapter house and part of the cloister, though the groundplan of the abbey is traced out. The gatehouse is amongst the earliest largescale uses of brick in England and the gate-passage is still hung with its original 14th-century doors.