Barking Abbey - AD 666 to 1539 - Barking, London, UK - 666 Sightings on Waymarking.com

The information board, that is held in a wooden frame, tells us:

Barking Abbey
666 - 1539

Barking Abbey was founded in AD 666 by a monk called Erkenwald for his sister Ethelburga. This first abbey was a double house containing both monks and nuns but under the control of an abbess. The abbey was destroyed by Vikings in AD 871 and restored about a century later as a single-sex Benedictine nunnery under the patronage of the Kings of Wessex and England. By 1066 it was large enough to accommodate the new King William the Conqueror and his followers. Towards the end of that year many of the Saxon earls and lords made their way to Barking to swear allegiance to their new king. In later centuries royal grants made Barking Abbey the second richest abbey in the country with estates in Essex, Middlesex, London and Surrey.

The abbey was surrendered to the Crown in 1539 during the period of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Demolition began the following year and took 18 months. Good stone and lead was reused at the king's manor house at Dartford and at Greenwich Palace.

In 19l1 the site of the Abbey was excavated. The walls of the abbey church, cloisters and surrounding buildings were rebuilt in stone and the site was laid out as a small park.

Since the 1960s archaeological excavations close to the ruins have revealed fragments of the earliest abbey destroyed by the Vikings They reveal a nrh and sophisticated community that used rare coloured glass vessels, imported fine pottery from France and Spain, and whose women wore jewellery and elaborate bone combs. There Is even evidence that they were weaving gold thread into cloth probably for church vestments Large numbers of writing Implements, known as styluses (or styli), show that the inhabitants were educated people.