Roche Abbey has one of the most complete ground plans of any English Cistercian monastery, laid out as excavated foundations. Founded in the 12th century as a monastry of the Cistercian order, Roche Abbey was once home to 50 monks and 100 lay brothers. Despite the monastery being suppressed in 1538, and most of the buildings dismantled, the soaring early Gothic transepts of this Cistercian monastery still survive to their original height and are ranked in importance with the finest early Gothic architecture in Britain. The Abbey of Roche, built for the so-called White Monks, as the Cistercians were known, was built at the northern end of an area once covered by Sherwood Forest and it was said that Robin Hood went to Mass here! Roche Abbey