Abbey House, Cambridge

Abbey House, also called Old Abbey House, is a Grade II listed building on Beche Road in Cambridge's Abbey district. Built c.1620 by Alexander Butler on the site of Barnwell Priory (dissolved 1539), parts may date from the 16th century. It is locally claimed as Cambridge's oldest continuously inhabited house. The house has a documented history of ghost stories dating to the 1700s, including Jacob Butler's ghost and Professor J.C. Lawson's 1904-1910 reports of a nun ghost. The Grey Lady legend connects to St Radegund's Priory. Urban Huttleston Broughton gifted the house to Cambridge in 1945; since 2002 it's owned by the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.

Abbey House, also called Old Abbey House, is a Grade II listed building on Beche Road in Cambridge's Abbey district. The house stands on the site of Barnwell Priory, an Augustinian priory founded c.1092 by Picot of Cambridge and dissolved in 1539. The current house was built around 1620 by Alexander Butler, incorporating fragments of the priory in its walls and cellar. The house features a brick-shaped gable dated 1678, with bands between storeys and two brick chimney stacks with grouped rectangular shafts. Several panelled rooms and bolection-moulded fireplace surrounds survive from the 17th century. Barnwell Priory was one of the most important Augustinian houses in Cambridgeshire. Founded by Picot, the High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, it became a significant religious and economic center. The priory was home to the Barnwell chronicler, an anonymous chronicler who wrote about the reign of King John. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539, the priory lands were granted to Anthony Brown and Edward Clinton. Alexander Butler acquired the site and built the current house around 1620, incorporating fragments of the priory in its walls and cellar. The house features a brick-shaped gable dated 1678, with bands between storeys and two brick chimney stacks with grouped rectangular shafts. Several panelled rooms and bolection-moulded fireplace surrounds survive from the 17th century. The house is located in the Abbey district of Cambridge, which was historically an important area for trade and commerce. The nearby Stourbridge Fair, one of Europe's largest medieval fairs, was held annually on Stourbridge Common. The fair was granted to the Leper Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene by King John in 1211 and became a major economic event for the region. The fair's location, with the river allowing barges to travel up the Cam from The Wash, and near an important road leading to Newmarket, made it accessible to a large population. The fair was a significant source of income for the town and played a crucial role in the economic development of Cambridge. Abbey House has been described as both the oldest inhabited house and the most haunted house in Cambridge. The house's reputation for being haunted came to local prominence during the occupancy of Professor J.C. Lawson of Pembroke College from 1904 to 1910. On the family's first night in residence, members of the household were reportedly woken at midnight by a crashing sound. From 1907 onward, Lawson and others reported seeing the ghost of a nun wrapped in a dark robe, who failed to respond to questioning but stood at the foot of Mrs. Lawson's bed sighing during a protracted illness. Children of another family resident in the house at that time reportedly received regular visitations from this nun, whom they did not like very much. The Grey Lady legend is one of the most enduring ghost stories associated with Abbey House. According to local legends, the house was haunted by the spirit of a nun from nearby St Radegund's Priory who used an underground passage, marked by a bricked-up archway in the house's cellar, to meet with a canon at Barnwell Priory who was her secret lover. Some versions of the legend claim the nun was walled up by her fellow nuns as punishment for her indiscretion. The Lawsons and others also reported seeing ghostly animals in the house's gardens, including a well-fed red squirrel that vanished when approached and a large hare that sat watching witnesses before disappearing. In the 1920s, reports of Mrs. Ascham, wife of the owner, repeatedly seeing a disembodied female head at the foot of her bed reached Professor F.J.M. Stratton of Gonville and Caius College, later President of the Society for Psychical Research. Stratton rented the house for a month and reported muttering and singing coming from an empty room. Urban Huttleston Broughton, 1st Baron Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey, gifted the house to the people of Cambridge at the end of World War II in celebration of the cessation of hostilities. The house was subsequently rented by the Cambridge & County Folk Museum until 1973 and a series of private tenants, including Mr. Young and his daughter, who reported strange noises that caused their dog to cower in the corner of the room in the early 1960s, and Professor Peter Danckwerts of Pembroke College, who researched the history of the house. There were further reported sightings of the Grey Lady up until 1986, around which time the house was exorcised by three clergymen. In 2002, following the death of the last leaseholder the previous year, the council put the house on the market for £700,000 and sold it to the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, who, as part of the contract, agreed to open the house to the public.

Abbey House is a private residence and not open to the public. It is visible from Abbey Road and Beche Road. The house is owned by the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order who use it as a community center. No tours or public access is available. The property is residential and should be respected as such.