page_title: Denny Abbey
section_title: Secular use
hierarchical_section_title: Denny Abbey / Secular use
caption_attribution_description: English: Denny Abbey in Cambridgeshire.
context_page_description: Denny Abbey is a former abbey near Waterbeach, about 6 miles north of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, England. It is now the Farmland Museum and Denny Abbey.
  The monastery was inhabited by a succession of three different religious orders. The site is a scheduled ancient monument. The church and refectory buildings survive and are Grade I listed buildings. Also on the site is a barn built in the 17th century from stone taken from the abbey.
  The site, on an ancient road between Cambridge and Ely, was settled by farmers as early as the Roman period. The Domesday Book recorded that it was owned by Edith the Fair, the consort of King Harold, in 1066. It was owned subsequently by the Breton lord, Alan, 1st Earl of Richmond.
  The place-name "Denny" is first attested in Templar records of 1176, where it appears as Daneya and Deneia. The name is thought to mean "Danes' Island".
context_section_description: The abbey was closed in 1536, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and was once more taken over by the Crown. The last of the nuns had left within two years. The Abbess's lodge, originally built for the Countess, was retained as a farmhouse, and the Refectory as a barn, but the nave was demolished. In 1628 the abbey passed into private ownership. The barrister John George Witt was born at Denny Abbey in 1836. Pembroke College, Cambridge, which had also been founded by the Countess of Pembroke in 1347, bought the site in 1928.
  The Abbey, Nuns' Refectory and surrounding land remained a farm until they were leased in 1947 to the Ministry of Works, which later transferred them to English Heritage. The abbey, partially restored in the 1960s, is open to the public alongside the Farmland Museum, who manage the Abbey on behalf of English Heritage.
  The Farmland Museum, which opened in 1997, has a shop, café and an education centre, running courses for local schools. Farm buildings including the 17th-century barn have been converted into displays of local history and farming, including a 1940s farm labourer's cottage, a 1930s village shop, displays on local crafts and skills. Many of the old farm tools and machinery came from a museum at nearby Haddenham which closed. It was at Haddenham where interviews were made in the 1970s with local farming people, recording their stories dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.
  The whole site, known as Farmland Museum and Denny Abbey, is open from April to October, and there are regular special event days.
  Note: The spellings Denny and Denney appear with equal frequency in the historical literature. The latter spelling is no longer used locally, in modern times.
caption: Farmhouse converted from the abbey church
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