I must confess to more than a little disappointment on seeing Hailes Abbey after it being on my bucket list for so long; very little remains although the plan is clearly visible. Founded as a Cistercian abbey in 1246 by the Earl of Cornwall, second son of King John and brother of Henry III, it was home to one of the great frauds of mediaeval Christendom: in 1268 Edmund, the Earl's son, obtained a portion of the Holy Blood, certified by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, which he donated to the Abbey thereby establishing the abbey as a great site of pilgrimage and generator of huge revenues. Henry VIII's Commissioners declared the relic a fake, duck's blood regularly refreshed. The Abbey was among the last to be dissolved, surrendering on Christmas Eve 1539.
