The first Crowland Abbey, founded in AD 716, had wattle walls and a roof thatched with local reeds, supported by oak piles driven into the peat. It was built in honour of St Guthlac, a Benedictine monk who lived on the island for 15 years until his death in AD 714.
Guthlac, the son of a Mercian nobleman, was a soldier who gave up military life to become a monk. After joining a monastery at Repton, he sought a more secluded life on the island of Crowland. St Guthlac, as he became, had a reputation for holiness, and many people sought him out for spiritual counselling, including Ethelbald, a pretender to the throne of Mercia. Fleeing from his cousin Coelred, Ethelbald sought sanctuary with Guthlac, who told him that one day he would become King of Mercia. Ethelbald promised that if this prophecy came true, he would build an abbey at Crowland — a promise he kept, laying the foundations on St Bartholomew's Day.
Subsequent stone buildings on the site were destroyed by a fire in 1091 and by an earthquake in 1118, with more rebuilding work carried out in the 15th century. Much of the abbey survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534, but it was seriously damaged in the 17th century during the Civil War when Cromwell's cannons pounded the royalist town of Crowland.
As the building decayed, stone was removed from the abbey by local people for building their houses. By the 19th century, what remained of the structure was in danger of collapse until a local clergyman launched an appeal that raised £3,000, enough to preserve the handsome ruin visible today with its west front covered with statues of apostles, abbots, saints, and kings (the north aisle has become the parish church).
The walk heads out over the Fens, with the abbey starkly framed behind you, before skirting around the northern edge of the old town. At the western extreme of the route, you follow the course of one of the great embankments that sheltered the town from flooded marshland. Now drained, the peat soil successfully grows a variety of crops.
Returning to the center of the town, you come to the 14th-century Trinity Bridge, a triangular structure with three arches. Before the Fens were drained, the streets of Crowland ran with water, and this bridge was constructed over the confluence of two streams, hence its unique shape. Too narrow for traffic and too steep for horses, it is essentially a footbridge.
At the apex of the bridge there was once a large cross, traces of which can still be seen today. Because of the bridge's height and central position, it was often used by preachers (religious services are still held there today) and made a good vantage point for the town crier's proclamations.
There are many legends about the origin of the statue on the bridge, but it is more likely that it was removed from the west front of the abbey early in the 18th century. From the bridge, you return to the abbey through the old town, which in 1226 was granted a royal charter for a market and a fair to be held annually at Bartholomewtide.
