Where it all began

There are plenty of stories behind the Lee Abbey house, and how it's come to be what it is now. Read on to find out more.

Stones and Romans

3000 BC	From the Stone Age, farmers and cattle raisers have been living on Exmoor.
250 BC	Farm settlers arrived from Brittany and started developing the more fertile parts of the moor. You can still see some of the stones from their castles, camps and stone circles in Lynton and the Valley of Rocks today.
500	With the Saxons came Christianity into Britain, as the North Devon coast was raided by the Danes. Saxon manors appeared at Lynton and Countisbury.
1199	Henry de Tracey, a Norman knight, gave the manors to the Cistercian Abbots of Forde Abbey in Dorset and they held the land for about 340 years, possibly building a farmhouse where Lee Abbey now is.