Barking Abbey

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The Abbey church, the third such one to stand on the site, was or Romanesque design built after the Norman invasion. It stood about 100 metres in length with a 30 metre wide transept and lead-covered pepperpot spires on both the western towers and the central tower.
Existing as a royal foundation Barking Abbey was considered stately enough, and with solid royal links, for it to be the first place that William the Conqueror lived in London.
The royal connections continued with the likes of Henry the First's queen Maud who was abbess at one point, King John's daughter, Mathilda being elected abbess and Robert the Bruce's wife being held there for 8 years from 1306.
The close royal connections were even reinforced when the it was finally suppressed in 1540 with the abbess, Dorothy Barley receiving a pension of £133 13s. 4d, a sum large enough to buy the equivalent of five executive houses of the day. The income at the time of dissolution however was a very substantial £1,080 a year.