Blanchland, Northumberland (028)

This church was another abbey that had become the parish church.

Blanchland Abbey, was founded as a "premonstratensian" priory. That long word means that the people who started the abbey were a Roman Catholic religious order of canons regular founded in Premontre near Laon. That doesn't help much either does it? I thought canons were something to do with guns. Anyway, the abbey was founded in 1165 and is in a very pretty village.

The abbey was dissolved in 1539 (by that naughty King Henry VIII). The Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin was built in the 19th century using the bits of the abbey that were still standing.