Even in the south, some Irish abbeys existed.

An Irish monk had set up one at Bosham, in Sussex, even before Wilfrith converted that kingdom; and one of his countrymen, Maidulf (or Maeldubh ?) was the original head of Malmesbury.

In process of time, however, as the union with Rome grew stronger, all these houses conformed to the more regular usage, and became monasteries of the ordinary Benedictine type.
The civilising value of the monasteries can hardly be over-rated.

Secure in the peace conferred upon them by a religious sanction, the monks became the builders of schools, the drainers of marshland, the clearers of forest, the tillers of heath.

Many of the earliest religious houses rose in the midst of what had previously been trackless wilds.
Peterborough and Ely grew up on islands of the Fen country.