CROWLAND

village (parish) and abbey, South Holland district, administrative and historic county of Lincolnshire, England. Crowland is situated in the low-lying Fens north of Peterborough. The first abbey, built 719860 over the cell of the hermit Guthlac on an island in the marshes, was destroyed by the marauding Danes and rebuilt in the 10th century. Some Norman work survives, but the main period of building, in Perpendicular style, was between 1392 and 1469. The abbey was besieged by Parliamentary forces in 1643 during the English Civil Wars, and much of it subsequently fell into ruins. From the 17th century onward the surrounding Fens were drained and converted into rich arable land. In the parish are the remains of a unique triangular bridge constructed in the 14th century. Pop. (1991) 3,172.