1182 by Ranulph de Glanville, who gave to it the manor of Leiston, conferred on him by Henry II, and also certain churches, which he had before given to the canons of the priory founded by him at Butley, and which they resigned in favour of this monastery. The situation of this first house being found both unwholesome and inconvenient, Robert de Ufford, earl of Suffolk, about the year 1363, built an abbey on the site of the ruins that yet exist. This edifice was destroyed by fire before 1389; but being rebuilt, it continued to flourish till the general dissolution, when it contained fifteen monks, and its annual revenues were, according to Weever's observation, far under-rated at £181. 17s. 1d. The old house, however, was not totally abandoned, some monks remaining in it, according to Tanner, till the suppression, and legacies being, as he says, left to Our Lady of the old abbey, in wills preserved in the office of the archdeacon of Suffolk, so late as 1511 and 1515. A. D. 1331 in Chronicon Butley, is the following passage which corroborates this statement: "John Grene, relinquishing his abbacie by choice, was consecrated an anchorite at the chapel of St. Mary, in the old monastery near the sea.'

Great part of the church, several subterraneous chapels, and various offices of the monastery are still standing, and applied to the purposes of barns and granaries. The length of the church