Despite his reservations about the self-contradictory sources, Eyton concluded that the foundation date lay between 1130 and 1138 and that the founder of the abbey “in all respects was the first William Fitz-Alan.” However, William FitzAlan's grant of the Preston Boats fish weir, around 1135, was clearly not a foundation grant: there was already a small but growing community when it was made. The Victoria County History account tends to give more weight than Eyton to the possibility of an earlier origin. Augustinian communities often began as small gatherings around a noted hermit before growing into established monasteries, or even small religious orders: the Abbey of Arrouaise in northern France, which had a Shropshire community at nearby Lilleshall Abbey, is an example. At Haughmond, the remains of a very modest early church were discovered beneath the floor of the later, more ambitious building, during the 1907 excavations: this may date back to the time of Prior Fulk or earlier. Despite these reservations and qualifications, the most recent account of William Fitz-Alan, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, simply treats him as the founder of the abbey, and it was certainly he who placed it on a secure basis, even if he was not the originator.