In 1179, Bertram de Verdun, the lord of the manor of Croxden, endowed a site for a new abbey, and 12 monks arrived from the Savigniac Cistercian mother house of Aulnay-sur-Odon in Normandy to build the new abbey over the next 50 years.
It was known as the "Abbey of the Vale of St. Mary at Croxden".