Crowland
Reducing your carbon foot print? Travel by bus! The X1 starts at Lowestoft and passes through Yarmouth, Norwich and Kings Lynn. At Peterborough it connects with the number 37 (Spalding) which will take you to Crowland and its famous abbey church. It was a boat that brought St. Guthlac to Crowland on St. Batholomew’s Day 699 AD! On what was then a marshy island he established a hermitage in the ruins of a plundered grave mound. Struggling with demons, marsh ague and strict asceticism Guthlac followed in the footsteps of St. Anthony of Egypt and the desert fathers. As his reputation for holiness grew many found their way through the watery Fenland wilderness to seek his counsel. Among them was the future King Ethelbald of Mercia. After Guthlac’s death in 714 AD Ethelbald founded an abbey on the site. The abbey endured through several re-foundings and re-buildings until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. Thereafter the cloisters and monastic buildings were abandoned a