CROWLAND or CROPLAND, market-town of Lincoln shire, England; in a low fen district, on the river Welland, 8m. N.N.E. of Peterborough, served by branches of the L.N.E.R. Pop. (1921) 2,707. A monastery was founded here in 716 by King Aethelbald, in honour of St. Guthlac of Mercia (d. 714)• The abbey suffered from Danish raids in 870, and was again burnt in 1091. A fine Norman abbey was raised in 1113. The west front is of early English date, with Perpendicular restoration. The north aisle is restored and used as the parish church. A curious triangular bridge spanned three streams, now covered, and affords three footways, which meet at an apex in the middle.
By a charter dated 716, Aethelbald granted the isle of Crow land to the abbey with a gift of money and leave to build and enclose the town. These privileges were confirmed by numerous royal charters. Under Abbot Aegelric the fens were tilled, the monastery grew rich, and the town increased in size, enormous tracts of land being held by the abbey at the Domesday Survey.
The town suffered from fire (1469-1476), but the abbey tenants were given money to rebuild it. Abbot Ralph Mershe in 1257 obtained a grant of a market every Wednesday, confirmed by Henry IV. in 1421, but it was afterwards moved to Thorney. The annual fair of St. Bartholomew, which originally lasted twelve days, was first mentioned in Henry III.'s charter of 1227. With the dissolution of the monastery the prosperity of the town rapidly decreased, Population of rural district (1931) 2,809.
See R. Gough, History and Antiquities of Croyland, Bibl. Top. Brit. iii., No. ii (London, 5783) ; W. G. Searle, Ingulf and the Historia Croylandensis (Camb. Antiq. Soc., No. 27) ; Dugdale, Monasticon, ii., (London, 1846; Cambridge,