This nunnery was
founded by Geoffrey of Gorham, sixteenth Abbot, about the middle of the
twelfth century. Two women, pious and ascetic, had taken up their abode
on this spot in a hut which they built for themselves, and Geoffrey
determined to build them a more permanent dwelling, and make them the
nucleus of a religious house. They accepted the Benedictine Rule, and
gradually the nunnery increased in size, and many ladies of high birth
took the veil here. One of the abbesses wrote the "Boke of St. Albans,"
not, as might be imagined, an account of the saint or of the religious
house, but a treatise on hawking, hunting, and fishing. It was printed
in 1483 at the St. Albans printing press. When the nunnery was
dissolved, Sir Richard Lee, to whom the Abbey lands were granted, turned
it into a dwelling-house for himself. The ruins consist of ivy-clad
walls of brick and flint, pierced by square-headed windows, but
containing few interesting features.
The name is said to have been derived from the fact that the two women
mentioned above soaked or sopped their dry bread in water drawn from the
Holy Well or some well in the immediate neighbourhood of their hut.
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