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Today only the ruins remain of this once great Abbey together with the
Curfew Tower alongside the surviving St Margaret's Parish Church. Recent archaeological excavations have revealed some of the remains of
the first abbey of Erkenwald. Jewellery, carved bone, pottery, gold
thread and glass making show have now made Barking Abbey into one of the
most important religious archaeological sites in Europe today.
According to Bede, the first Barking Abbey was founded by St Erkenwald
in AD 666 for his sister St Ethelburga.
The first Abbey was a missionary centre and was destroyed by the Vikings
in 870.
100 years later the Abbey was re-founded as a Royal foundation. This
allowed the King to nominate each new abbess on the death of the old. The Abbey became a suitable place for members of the royal family to
stay, and in 1066 the first Norman King, William I spent his first New
Year since the Conquest here.
Under royal patronage, queens, princesses and members of the nobility
all became abbesses.
In 1541 the Abbey was dissolved by order of King Henry VIII. The nuns
were pensioned off and the buildings soon demolished.
For almost 400
years the Abbey site was used as a quarry and a farm.
Early in 1911 an excavation was carried out jointly by the Town Council
and the Morant Club under Sir Alfred Clapham. Remains of the walls of
the Abbey church were left exposed to view and the lines of the cloister
out in 1966, 1971, and from 1984 onwards. In 1910 the ruins of the main
Abbey church were excavated and became a small park.
On 5 May 1975, the Abbey site, St Margaret's churchyard and their
environs were officially opened as a conservation area.
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