HOUSE OF CISTERCIAN MONKS
6. THE CELL OR GRANGE OF FARINGDON
There is no Cistercian abbey among the
religious houses of Berkshire; but the valuable
manors of Faringdon, and certain adjacent
property in the county, were granted to the
house of St. Mary of Cîteaux by King John in
1203, on condition of a house being established
there for Cistercian monks. But in the following
year he founded in the New Forest the abbey
known as Beaulieu for thirty monks of that
reformed Benedictine order. By the Beaulieu
foundation charter of 25 January, 1204-5, that
abbey was endowed, inter alia, with the manors
of Great and Little Faringdon, Great and Little
Coxwell, Shilton and Inglesham, and the churches
of Shilton and Inglesham, and the chapel of
Coxwell, and all that the king had in Langford.
Beaulieu being thus founded, the monks who
were already at Faringdon were transferred to the
important abbey of which Faringdon was henceforth a cell.
The chartularies of Beaulieu have many
records of the manorial customs and the tenants,
with the value of their Berkshire estates, but they
contain nothing of interest with respect to the
actual grange and chapel of the few monks who
would from time to time reside at Faringdon to
superintend the farming of the property they
held in this county. (fn. 1)
At the time of the dissolution of Beaulieu
Abbey, the Berkshire property was valued at
£102 7s. 2d. a year.