Extraordinary discovery of 12th century abbot's grave For something like seven centuries he had lain undisturbed. He – or at least his remains – survived Henry VIII’s destruction of his abbey in 1537, eluded the grave-robbers that followed, and avoided discovery by Victorian archaeologists. Even deep excavations and the underpinning of the crumbling building in the 1930s failed to unearth him. But the abbot who headed Britain’s second richest and most powerful Cistercian monastery may soon be unmasked... [...] The skeleton of a portly figure was discovered almost by fluke when emergency repairs had to be made to the abbey...