Buckland Abbey
This fine medieval house near Yelverton was once (as the name suggests) an abbey. Originally settled by Cistercian monks, the abbey and its estate were founded in 1278. However, as with virtually all of England's abbeys, Buckland was forced to close in the 1540s by Henry VIII and his Dissolution of the Monasteries. After the monks the first owner of Buckland was a Sir Richard Grenville, the former Marshall of Calais. He bought it with the intention of converting the abbey into a country house for his son Roger. However, Roger was aboard Henry VIII's ill-fated Mary Rose when it sank of Portsmouth. Instead the estate passed on to Sir Richard's grandson, another Richard. It was he who carried out the conversion of the abbey church into a home retaining the original church tower. (Yelverton, England)
