Holme Cultram - a building or a place?

[Jos, Whitehaven]

Holme Cultram Abbey is at Abbeytown (rather obvious when you think about it). The monastery went the way of all monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII, most of the monks seemed to be pensioned off. At that time the monastery owned a lot of land as well as the building. Hence you could say it is both a place and a building.

Some of the Anglican ecclesiastical parishes in that area can trace their roots to the abbey. If you are researching family history most of the parishes in that part of Cumberland seem to be reasonably accurate.

I have some images of Holme Cultram Abbey on some notelets I obtained in the area. You should be able to get some modern views of the Abbey on various Internet sites.

[LizzieW]

Only just seen this site, thank you for the references.  Just found out that my 5 x g.grandparents were married in Holme Cultram in 1767, so now I'm trying to find out who their parents were.  I think my 5 x g.grandmother came from Holme Cultram, but not sure about my 5 x g.grandfather.

Lizzie

[bobgraham]

There was a small article about the abbey in last nights paper. If you go to cumberland-news.co.uk or cumberlandnews.co.uk (they seem to have changed recently) and type cultram in the search box top right, you get 250 hits. If you go into refine search box and limit it so 6th May 2011 is in the time frame, you get an article about archeologists helping the local utility company to minimise damage to the environs of the abbey. And a pic! bob

[Jos, Whitehaven]

After the dissolution of the monastery, there was a kind of early 'parish council' that looked after the civil affairs of the parish of Holme Cultram (e.g. maintenance of the sea dyke to the west). It was known as 'The Sixteen Men of Holme Cultram'.

(NB Some references omit the 'e' at the end of 'Holme')

It is a reasonably well known organisation. There seems to be a good collection on this in the Cumbria County Archives (Carlisle Records Office). If you are lucky possibly some of your forebears could be listed in this collection.
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The neighbouring place of Aspatria also adopted the 'Sixteen Men' format for civil affairs.

[Jos, Whitehaven]

In October 2015 Holme Cultram Abbey was officially re-opened after a major fire, including an exhibition about the abbey's history by the use of story boards and models. There are many old headstones in the churchyard.

The attached photographs a model of the abbey at its peak and some of the story boards. I hope these may be of interest especially for those with a family history link to the area.

[Jos, Whitehaven]

The attached photographs show the exterior of the modern-day church building of Holme Cultram Abbey which, although still impressive, is a much smaller building than existed before the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of King Henry VIII.

[LizzieW]

Thanks Jos.  I visited a couple of years ago as I have 6, 7 and 8 x g.g.grandparents who married and were buried in Holme Cultram in the late 17thC and early to mid 18thC.  One of them was a churchwarden, but I couldn't find graves for any of them, although I have the dates from the parish records as shown on Cumberland Roots.