Lamspringe Abbey

Lamspringe Abbey is a former religious house of the English Benedictines in exile, at Lamspringe near Hildesheim in Germany.First foundationThe foundation by Count Ricdag of the first religious house at Lamspringe for canonesses is conventionally dated at 847. This Augustinian priory became Lutheran during the Reformation and was destroyed during the Thirty Years' War in 1626.Second foundationIn 1628 English Benedictine monks in exile approached the Bursfelde Congregation with a request for premises and in 1630 were granted the derelict buildings at Lamspringe, although they were unable to take possession and begin work on the monastery until the early 1640s, after the end of the Thirty Years' War. The English Benedictines rebuilt the abbey, dedicated to St Adrian of Corinth, a 3rd-century martyr, and St Denis, and from 1671 ran a school here for English Catholic boys, mostly from Yorkshire and the north, which became a centre for Catholic education for, and influence on, Great Britain.Unlike the other English monasteries in exile, Lamspringe was a large abbey rather than a small priory, and was wealthy, with wide estates, and the community's wealth and status were reflected in the quality of the building works undertaken. The abbey church, serious work on which began in 1691 under abbot Maurus Corker, and the remaining monastery buildings, executed in rather grand style by abbot Joseph Rokeby up to 1731, still remain virtually intact.