The earliest recorded excavations took place in the early seventeenth century when the Countess of Devonshire had her gardener look for relics and the body of Cardinal Wolsey. The only record of this activity comes to us via a third party, but it does not appear that much was found.
In the mid-1840s James Thompson, editor of the Leicester Chronicle, attempted to locate the Abbey church and the claustral buildings but failed to find them. In the following decade members of the fledging Leicestershire Architectural and Archaeological Society, forerunner of the Archaeological and Historical Society, carried out excavations, but they also failed to find the claustral buildings.
The issue of the location of the main abbey buildings remained unresolved for seventy years. In the early 1920s the 9th Earl of Dysart was considering donating the Abbey precinct to and the Town Council. This sparked off a further programme of archaeological investigation. This began in 1923 and although hampered by operations associated with the market gardens a series of trenches were dug in the centre of the precinct, but the search came to a premature end in July 1925 when one of organizers died. Again no trace of the main abbey buildings was identified.
In December 1925 the Deed of Gift that donated the Abbey to the Town Council was signed, and the Council began the process of extending Abbey Park to the west of the Soar. These works included repairs to the precinct walls and the demolition of those parts of the ruins of Cavendish House that were deemed to be unsafe. They also included a considerable amount of excavation.
William Bedingfield, the architect of the new park, decided to combine these preparatory ground-works with archaeological investigations. By 1930 these excavations had located the site of the main claustral buildings in the northeast corner of the former Abbey precinct. Bedingfield then persuaded the Town Council that the plan of the principle abbey buildings should be laid out with low walls.
