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Very little remains of Sawley Abbey although the layout of the principal buildings is clearly visible at ground level. Founded 1174, as a daughter house of Newminster Abbey (near Morpeth), itself a daughter house of Fountains Abbey, endowed by the Percys of Northumberland. Sawley is only 8 miles from Whalley Abbey another Cistercian foundation relocated from Stanlow in Cheshire in 1296. The two abbeys feuded for years: Sawlwey claimed that their costs had risen because of the extra demands placed on the local economy by Whalley and because of disputed fishing rights on the River Ribble. Never a prosperous abbey, Sawley's church nave was musc reduced in size around 1500. Dissolved 1536 as a minor friary with an annual income of less than £200. The last abbot was executed in March 1537 alongside the lst abbot of Whally under Henry VII's reprisals for the Pilgrimage of Grace