It was in the religious life of Bourne that the impact of national events was most clearly marked in the 16th century. The suppression of the monastic houses in England and Wales by Henry VIII and the transfer of their property to the crown in an effort to boost royal income had far reaching effects throughout the land.

The operation was organised between 1536 and 1540 by Thomas Cromwell, closest adviser to Henry VIII and later Lord Great Chamberlain of England, and involved a visitation of all monasteries which was conducted in 1535-36, so revealing the hoped for examples of misconduct that provided some moral justification for the policy. Approximately 800 institutions were affected and although their 9,000 inmates received some compensation, the dissolution provoked resentment that contributed to the Pilgrimage of Grace which originated in Lincolnshire as a protest against the dissolution of the smaller monasteries.

For the king, the policy meant an additional income well in excess of £90,000 a year and most the property was sold off to the English gentry through the Court of Augmentations. It also brought to an end the 400 year story of Bourne Abbey while the subsequent spread of the protestant reformation began to affect the town from the early 17th century onwards.

Conditions at Bourne Abbey were generally satisfactory and in 1519, Bishop Atwater's diocesan visitation produced information as to the progress or otherwise of the monastery during the intervening years. Once again, by comparison with other religious houses, Bourne seems to have been very satisfactory, although it did show some of the general slackness and secularisation of religious life which prevailed in most places. One complaint which required attention concerned the fabric of the church because his report said: "The nave is defective through the laxity of the lord abbot because he does not keep clean a certain lead gutter between the parish church and the monastic building, the repair of which is the responsibility of the said abbot".

It is likely that the abbot's excuse for inactivity was the fact that the nave of the abbey also served as the parish church and therefore he felt it was the responsibility of the parishioners to remedy the problem. There were one or two other complaints made concerning the vicar and his flock. He was apparently refusing to make a circuit of the whole parish on rogation days and was neglecting to visit a large part of his parish although his parishioners were by no means all models of virtue and respectability. For instance, it was reported that

Hugh Ding and his wife indulge in lewdness . . . George Sawar and Annys Skethe are known for their adultery . . . and George Wilson had intended to take a wife, but the banns have been called three times and now he does not wish to have her.

But faults and scandals of this kind were by no means confined to Bourne.

Concerning the abbey itself, Bishop Atwater found very little to note in 1519. There were a few matters which needed putting right, namely that the abbot did not present a balance sheet every year, there were no special arrangements for the infirm, as distinct from the convalescent brethren, the junior canons showed little reverence for their elders and neglected the ceremonial bows in church for which there were such elaborate directions and the refectory was not used, meals being taken in the abbot's lodgings. The latter had become such a general custom that all the bishop could do was to rule that a few canons should use the refectory occasionally. In some respects, however, the abbot was doing well. He had reformed the old custom of senior canons confining themselves to Sundays for officiating in church and leaving the weekday services to the juniors. Now there was a regular rota for all canons.

Six years later, a visitation was carried out by the Vicar-General, John Rayne, under the instructions of Bishop Longland, and quite a different state of affairs was revealed at Bourne. A more formidable list of complaints was raised against the abbot, John Small, and the ten other canons. The abbot had never rendered an account since his accession, and was slack in defending the rights of the monastery, so the rents had suffered. On certain nights, usually once a week, the canons made their formal departure upstairs and then came down again to drink, rising late for matins as a result. Nor did they keep silence as they should have done. The prior usually sat drinking so late after compline that he often did not come to matins at all. Lay people were freely allowed in the monastic buildings, even in the dormitory, where tailors and cobblers came to attend to the canons' wearing apparel.

Three of the canons, Henry Halton, John Todd, and Thomas Pounfrett, were disobedient to their superiors, while Pounfrett and another of the brethren spoke insulting words to the abbot. Halton, an elderly man, requested that he might have a room where he could lie in comfort and have a fire. But his years do not seem to have rendered him docile; he and Todd did not go to the choir services, but walked about the nave of the church. They neither sang, nor read, nor lay in the dormitory at times when they were convalescent; but they lay in the guest-house, where they drank, made merry, and chattered with others, early and late. These, and other faults mentioned, were not particularly outrageous but it appears that the attempt at reform, made six years earlier, had broken down. The abbot had lost influence, discipline had almost gone, and the original monastic ideals had been largely forgotten.

There was no further opportunity for reform as the shadow of extinction was spreading over the monasteries of the kingdom. In 1536, after a swift investigation by Henry VIII's commissioners, the smaller houses, including Bourne Abbey, were closed. John Small was still the abbot at Bourne and there were nine canons, Thomas Bourne, prior, James Aslackby, precentor, Robert Haxey, sub-prior, Edward Bedford, Robert Baston, Thomas Salton, William Gainsborough, Robert Boston, and Edward Edenham. The fact that these men's surnames are also place names is explained by the common practice of dropping one's original surname when "entering religion" and thus having to be distinguished by one's place of birth or origin.

After the dissolution, the site and demesne of Bourne Abbey passed to Richard Cotton of Bedhampton and following several other changes, by the early part of the 17th century it had come into the hands of the Trollope family. The rectory, however, was leased for twenty-one years after the dissolution to Richard Riche, a London grocer. By 1608, it was being granted by the Crown to Francis Phelips and Richard Moine. Soon afterwards, from 1613, it was members of the Browne family of Stamford who had the right of presentation to the vicarage, and this continued until the mid-18th century.

Once the abbey had been suppressed, it is likely that the building fell into swift decay except for the church itself. Some of the available stone was no doubt taken away to build or repair houses in the neighbourhood and it has been claimed that the last remains of the kitchen only disappeared in the late 19th century. It also appears that the tithe barn which stood in Church Lane survived for a considerable period and a map of the town drawn in 1827 shows a continuous building from the church northwards along Church Lane as far as the present entrance to the vicarage and the church hall which might well have been part of the building.

As for the church itself, after 1536, it remained and the chancel would become part of the parish church, as the nave had always been. A report on the state of the churches in Lincolnshire, issued in 1602, mentioned Bourne amongst other places as having a church and chancel well repaired and decently kept. But, as time went on, the chancel fell into decay although the existence of a mediaeval priest’s door which can still be seen on the south side suggests that complete demolition did not take place and that remnants of the old chancel were incorporated when rebuilding was undertaken at a later period.

NOTE: I am indebted to J D Birkbeck for permission to quote from his research
for A History of Bourne (revised edition 1976).