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Basingwerk Abbey () is a Grade I listed ruined abbey near Holywell, Flintshire, Wales. The abbey, which was founded in the 12th century, belonged to the Cistercian. It maintained significant lands in the English county of Derbyshire. The abbey was abandoned and its assets sold following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536.
The site is now managed by Cadw – the national Welsh heritage agency.
In 1157, Owain Gwynedd encamped his army at Basingwerk, though at the Hen Blas site not at the current site, before facing the forces of Henry II at the Battle of Ewloe. The Welsh Prince stopped at the abbey because of its strategic importance. It blocked the route Henry II had to take to reach Twthill, Rhuddlan. In the fighting that followed, Owain Gwynedd split his army routing the English near Ewloe.
The abbey had significant lands in the English county of Derbyshire. Henry II gave the monks a manor near Glossop. The Monks' Road and the Abbot's Chair near the town are a reminder of the Abbey's efforts to administer their possession. In 1290 the Abbey gained a market town for Glossop. The monks also got another charter for nearby Charlesworth in 1328.
By the 13th century, the abbey was under the patronage of Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd. His son Dafydd ap Llywelyn gave St Winefride's Well to the abbey. The monks harnessed the power of the Holywell stream to run a corn mill and to treat the wool from their sheep. The monks sided with the English in Edward I's late 13th century conquest of Wales, for which they were rewarded with permission to hold a market and fair at Holywell. In 1433, the monks leased all of Glossopdale in Derbyshire to the Talbot family, the future Earls of Shrewsbury (1442). The increasing worldliness of the abbey by this time can be seen in the rebuilding of the domestic buildings to make them more comfortable, and in the abbot's patronage of bards like Tudur Aled. There was also some laxity in the religious observance - the last abbot, Nicholas Pennant, was the son of his predecessor Thomas.
A legend says a 12th-century Basingwerk Abbey monk was lured into a nearby wood by the singing of a nightingale. He thought he had only been listening a short while, but when he returned, the abbey was in ruins. He crumbled to dust shortly afterwards.
At the Valor Ecclestiasticus survey of 1535, Basingwerk was assessed at £150, putting it among the smaller houses that were earmarked for closure. By this time the number of monks had probably dwindled to two or three. In 1536, abbey life came to an end with the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII. Its dissolution was made lawful by the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act and the lands of the abbey were granted to lay owners, with the site itself passing to Henry ap Harry of Llanasa. The abbot received a pension of £17 per annum.
Two centuries earlier a Welsh seer, Robin Ddu ("Robin the Dark"), said the roof on the refectory would go to a church under Moel Famau. It did: when the abbey was sold, the parts of the roof went to St Mary's Church in Cilcain below the slopes of Moel Famau. Another section of roof was reportedly given to the Collegiate and Parochial Church of St Peter at Ruthin, where it still covers the North Nave. Its Jesse window went to the Church of St Dyfnog at Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch. The choir stalls went to St Mary on the Hill, Chester, and some of the roofing lead was used to repair Holt Castle, as well as several royal castles in Ireland.
The abbey marks the starting point of the North Wales Pilgrims Way.
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