Garendon Abbey was founded in 1133 by Robert, Earl of Leicester. It was in all probability a daughter house of Waverley, the earliest Cistercian monastery to be established in England.The founder endowed the abbey with 5 carucates and 3 virgates of land at Garendon, a burgage tenement at Leicester, and other lands at Dishley, Shepshed, and Ringolthorp. During the 12th century various benefactors granted to the abbey lands at Eastwell, (fn. 4) Ibstock, Welby, Burton on the Wolds,and Stanton under Bardon, in Leicestershire, at Costock (Notts.), and at Heathcote (Derbys.). The wild country of Charnwood Forest, in which Garendon lay, gave the monks opportunities for agricultural development of the type accomplished by many other Cistercian houses. Before the end of the 12th century granges had been established in the vicinity of the abbey at Garendon itself, Stanton, Dishley, and Ibstock, and farther afield at Burton on the Wolds, Ringolthorp, Goadby, and Welby,in eastern Leicestershire, the Peak, and at Costock and Rempstone (Notts.). (fn. 14) The abbey seems to have carried on sheep farming on a considerable scale; in 1225 the abbot obtained permission to export wool to Flanders or elsewhere, and there are references to sheep-folds at the granges. So far as can be discovered from the extant cartulary of the house, Garendon did not in the 12th century acquire such property as tithe, rents, and advowsons. About the middle of the 13th century, however, the abbey was granted rents at Anstey. In 1296 the grange at Rempstone was let out to farm, and Swannington grange was farmed out in 1343. In 1341 the abbey was granted the royal chapel or hermitage of Cripplegate, at London, and in 1343 the abbey had licence to acquire 4 messuages in London. The advowson of Dishley was obtained in 1458, and the church was appropriated in the same year.
From: 'House of Cistercian monks: The abbey of Garendon', A History of the County of Leicestershire: Volume 2 (1954), pp. 5-7.