The original Leiston Abbey was once the home of pirating monks, but today the ruins of the second Leiston Abbey, showcasing some of the finest and most complete monastic remains in the south of England, lie well off the beaten track in rural Suffolk. It is known from the historic records that the first monastic buildings in the Leiston area were founded in 1171 when Ranulf de Glanville, King Henry II’s Chief Justiciar who had founded the Priory of Augustinian Canons at Butley, established a Premonstratensian house at Leiston in 1183. The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré or Premonstratensians - commonly known as the White Canons on account of the color of their habit -were a religious Order of
