This Day in History: 1277-08-09

On 9th August 1277, John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and owner of Sandal castle, was one of many nobles, after Edward I and Queen Eleanor, to lay stones on the spot where the high altar of Edward’s new Christian abbey, near Northwich, on the banks of the River Weaver, was to be built. It was intended that Vale Royal (Edward’s preferred name for the abbey) was to be the largest of its kind in Britain, larger than it’s sister house at Fountains, Yorkshire.