Dedicated to St Mary Disestablished 1538 | Founder Alexander of Lincoln | |
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Order Cistercian 1137-1139Gilbertine 1139-1538 Status Monastery rebuilt as a house in the 1780s and 1830s, now ruined Heritage designations Scheduled monument, Listed building | ||
Haverholme priory lincs ruin revivalheritage quickview
Haverholme Priory was a monastery in Lincolnshire, England. Its remains are situated 4 miles (6 km) north-east from the town of Sleaford and less than 1 mile (1.6 km) south-west from the village of Anwick.
Contents
- Haverholme priory lincs ruin revivalheritage quickview
- Foundation
- Gilbertine operation
- Dissolution and subsequent history
- References
Foundation
In 1137 Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln offered the site of Haverholme Priory to the Cistercian monks of Fountains Abbey. After two years of construction the order rejected the site and instead established Louth Park Abbey. Haverholme was offered to Gilbert of Sempringham and his Gilbertine order who sent nuns and brothers from Sempringham to inhabit the new buildings of what was to be a double monastery.
Gilbertine operation
The Gilbertines also inherited the responsibility for keeping the neighbouring fens drained, and to maintain a foot ferry to Sleaford across the River Slea at Ewerby Waith. They were however summoned to account in 1316 when it fell into disrepair. They were summoned again in 1360 when Alice Everingham, daughter of John de Everingham, who was supposed to have taken vows, fled from the Priory, only to be hunted down and recaptured. She complained to the Bishop of the time that she had never taken vows and she was being held against her will, so he ordered her to be released.
It is rumoured that in 1164 Thomas Becket hid at Haverholme during one of his arguments with the King.
Dissolution and subsequent history
Henry VIII dissolved the Priory in 1538 and it had various owners for the next two and a half centuries. It was inherited by the Finch-Hatton family. George Finch-Hatton, 10th Earl of Winchilsea and 5th Earl of Nottingham rebuilt it in 1830. It was used as a family home by the Finch-Hatton family for almost a century but by the early 1920s it was up for sale. Haverholme was sold in 1926 to an American woman who had most of it dismantled, stone by stone, to be rebuilt in America. The cargo was on the dock in Liverpool when the buyer became a victim in a train crash. Eventually the stones, never shipped to America, were used to build new docks.
One casualty of this was the Sleaford Canal locks, which also fell into disuse, effectively closing the canal.
The present ruin is the remains of a Gothic building built around 1835 to designs by the architect Henry Edward Kendall. This was a rebuild of an earlier house dating from 1780. The ruins are now a Grade II listed building and designated Ancient Monument.