Founded in 987 AD by the Anglo-Saxon nobleman Æthelmær and dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539, the abbey was converted into a private manor house and has remained in private hands ever since.

Unlike the dramatic ruins found at Fountains or Rievaulx, Cerne Abbey is a working estate, lived in, cared for and quietly extraordinary. Two medieval buildings survive in remarkable condition. The Abbot's…

Founded in 1242 by a grieving duchess after the Mongol devastation of Poland, the abbey began modestly, a Benedictine foothold in uncertain terrain. But time, and the ambitions of successive monastic orders, reshaped it into something far grander. By the 18th century, the complex had blossomed into one of Europe’s most extravagant Baroque ensembles—a kind of sacred theater where architecture,…

Who would think that the last emperor of France, Napoleon III, had found his way to a quiet town in England? Well, following his passing and then his son's death in the Zulu War, his wife Eugene bought a house and came to live in Farnborough. She had an abbey built, complete with the church and Imperial Mausoleum, where the family are at rest. With the gothic styling of the buildings, you'd be…