The Abbey Church of Thorney (as you can't see it now)

I think it is a while since we have shown this sketch, created by a former resident of Thorney, Justin Ayton.

The village of Thorney formed around a medieval Abbey which had been founded in AD662. That monastery was destroyed by the Vikings, but refounded around 970. A large stone church, built of stone from Barnack, was built and extended. The side view below shows it around 1320, at its largest.

side view of the Abbey church, cut through the central tower

In this illustration, the full length of the Abbey can be seen. It is not as long as Ely Cathedral is now, but much longer than our current Abbey. The red lines on the left (west) show the medieval building which survives, where the nave of the parish church has been in use since around 1638. The diagram shows a section through the central tower, showing the huge arches which no longer exist, but can be imagined if you compare them with the tower arches at Peterborough Cathedral. Everything to the right (east) of the red lines was demolished after Henry VIII closed down the monastery in late 1539. The stone was valuable, and reused in local houses around the Green, but mostly sent to Cambridge where it was used to build college chapels.

I have a theory that you can see some evidence if you look down the gravel path in the churchyard towards the Park. I think there are changes of level in the path, and one day it would be great to prove how long the building was.