By 1535 the monastery was dilapidated and in considerable debt, and was referred to mockingly as 'Dirtforde' by Richard Layton, one of the king's officials, who visited it. That same year, the abbey's income was assessed in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, Henry VIII's great survey of church finances, at £108 13s. 9d, which meant the following year that it came under the terms of the first Suppression Act, Henry's initial move in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.In 1536 the abbey was closed by the king and the site was granted to Sir William Fitzwilliam. The last abbot, John Sympson, was appointed head of Titchfield Abbey in Hampshire but resigned in less than a year. He was later given the living of Horsted Keynes.