#abandoned #tupholmeabbey #exploring
Tupholme Abbey was a Premonstratensian abbey close to the River Witham some 10+1⁄2 miles (16.9 km) east of the city of Lincoln, England. The Witham valley in Lincolnshire is notable for its high concentration of monasteries-there were six on the east bank and three on the west-all presumably drawn to the area by the usefulness of the River Witham for transport and by the wealth (in wool) that it transported.[1] The abbey was largely destroyed by 1538, after being seized during Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The name Tupholme reflects the influence of Scandinavian cultures on Lincolnshire during the Danelaw during the 9th-11th centuries and it means basically an island where rams were raised. 'Tupp' is a word for male sheep first used in the north of Britain during the Middle Ages, with origins generally given as 'unknown', though it is conceivably related to the Swedish word 'tupp' meaning a male chicken (cock).[5] As for the 'holme' in Tupholme, it comes from an old Norse word 'holmr', meaning an island and indicating that the abbey once stood on an island in a marsh, the surrounding lands having been wet before the fens were drained for farming.