Bruern or Bruern Abbey is a hamlet and civil parish on the River Evenlode about 6 miles north of Burford in West Oxfordshire. The 2001 census recorded the parish population as 62. In 1147 Nicholas Basset founded a Cistercian Abbey here as a daughter house of Waverley Abbey in Surrey. The Abbey held property in west Oxfordshire, east Gloucestershire a…
Bruern or Bruern Abbey is a hamlet and civil parish on the River Evenlode about 6 miles north of Burford in West Oxfordshire. The 2001 census recorded the parish population as 62. In 1147 Nicholas Basset founded a Cistercian Abbey here as a daughter house of Waverley Abbey in Surrey. The Abbey held property in west Oxfordshire, east Gloucestershire and at Priddy in Somerset. There seems to have been rebuilding work in the 13th century, as Henry III gave timber in 1232, and two altars were dedicated in 1250. By 1291, the community was heavily in debt, and financial problems continued throughout the later Middle Ages. In 1382 the abbey also bought the manor of Fifield, Oxfordshire. In 1532 a scandal erupted when Abbot Macy was found to have purchased his office from Cardinal Wolsey with the promise of 250 marks and 280 oak trees from the abbey estates. His attempts to recoup the costs from the abbey's income led to his deposition as abbot. At the Valor Ecclesiasticus survey of 1535 there were fifteen monks, and the abbey had a net income of £124, making it one of the smaller houses. The abbey was dissolved in October 1536. After the dissolution, the Abbey became the property of Sir Anthony Cope of Hanwell, Oxfordshire, ancestor of the Cope baronets.
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