By 1284 the number of canons had declined to seven,[Declined from what figure?
clarification needed] and these were evicted in 1285 when the widow
Maud de Lacy, Countess of Gloucester(d.1289), formerly the wife of
Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester (d.1262), refounded the establishment as a nunnery as the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and
Saint Etheldreda. In 1286 the abbess was granted licence to hold weekly markets. It was not especially wealthy. The number of historical records that survive for this establishment is not large which limits a full knowledge of its history. However recent research by Atkinson has added much to its known history.[5]
The Abbey was suppressed in 1539 during the
Dissolution of the Monasteries. Of its later history, in September 1546 Sir
Richard Grenville (c.1495-1550), of
Stowe, Cornwall and
Bideford, and Roger Blewett of
Holcombe Rogus paid nearly £1,170 for the manors of Canonsleigh in Burlescombe and Tynyell in Landulph.[7]
The remains today consist of a small 15th-century gatehouse that has two large blocked arches and, to the east, further fragments that include ruined buildings, the remains of a
reredorter and a possible south wall of the eastern range of buildings.[8]
Anthony New, A Guide to the Abbeys of England And Wales, p104. Constable.
Henry Thorold, The Collins Guide to the Ruined Abbeys of England, Wales and Scotland, Harper Collins, 1985
Ordnance Survey, Monastic Britain, South Sheet, 2nd Edition.
The Cartulary of Canonsleigh Abbey (British Library Harleian MS 3660), London, Vera C.M. (Ed.), published in Devon & Cornwall Record Society Publications, new series, vol.8, London, 1965
Elworthy, Frederick Thomas, "Canonsleigh", published in: Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Sciences etc., 1892, pp. 359–376
Parker, Chrissie.
"Canonsleigh Abbey, Devon". chrissieparkerauthor.wordpress.com. Retrieved 4 February 2019. – contains many photographs of the site.