Warden Abbey
Warden Abbey was founded in 1135 and dissolved in 1537. There are no remains to be seen; the Landmark Trust building, popularly known as Warden Abbey, is a fragment of a Tudor Mansion built by Robert Gostwick post dissolution in the mid C16.
Major excavations on the site of the abbey took place from the 1960s to the 1980s. In 1974 a fine and intact medieval tiled pavement was discovered.
The site of the abbey remains in the ownership of the Whitbread family.
Jane Whitbread planted part of the area with a vineyard in 1986 on the site of the former ‘lyttel’ vineyard. The first vintage was produced in 1990. The vineyard contains Bacchus, Muller-Thurgau, Regner and Reichensteiner, all modern German hybrids which seem to produce more exciting wines in England than in their native land.
The four acre site is currently leased by Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity as a not-for-profit community vineyard.
There are no visible signs of the Abbey, which was located to the south of the Bedford Road between Old Warden and Cardington.