Following the surrender of the house on 29 September 1538 pensions were paid to twenty people: a prior, seven canons, a prioress and eleven nuns.

The Gilbertine priory of St. Mary, Alvingham, was founded as a double house between 1148 and 1154, possibly by Hugh de Scotney or one of his tenants.

A wise compact with the neighbouring Cistercians' house of Louth Park in 1174 provided against that most fruitful source of strife, the acquisition of lands.

Prior to 1251 the priory and convent had granges at Alvingham, Cockerington, Grainthorpe, Keddington, Newton, Cabourne, Coningsby, and Swinfleet and various houses in Lincoln, Louth, Boston, and Great Grimsby.

Before 1251 the prior and convent had granges at Alvingham, Cockerington, Grainthorpe, Keddington, Newton, Cabourne, Coningsby, and Swinefleet, houses or rents in Lincoln, Louth, Boston, and Great Grimsby, and lands in several other townships in the county.

Like many other religious houses, they profited by the embarrassment of lesser barons and knights, and in 1232 were able to purchase the greater part of the manor of Alvingham from John de Melsa, his father and mother, by paying off their debt of 87½ marks to certain Jews.

[7] Their claim to two parts of the church of St. Andrew, Market Stainton, involved them in a struggle with Robert Grosteste, bishop of Lincoln, in the reign of Henry III.

[7] The number of small grants in Alvingham and Cockerington suggests that the prior and convent were popular with their neighbours, or at least very successful in inducing them to part with their land.

The revenues were considerably augmented by the sale of wool, which averaged ten sacks a year at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

[7] Edward I invited the convent to consider providing secure accommodation for Gwenllian of Wales and her cousins, the daughters of Dafydd ap Gruffydd.

He pleaded that owing to floods, sterile lands, pestilence among sheep and cattle, and other sinister events in the past, the convent could not maintain its wonted hospitality.

An appeal to Pope Paul II in 1465 resulted in a bull enabling the prior to hold some benefice in commendam on account of the great cost of hospitality.

5d., and included the rectories of Alvingham, Cockerington St. Mary, Cockerington St. Leonard, Keddington, Grainthorpe, and Stainton, and granges, lands, and rents in those places, and at Yarborough, Stewton, South Somercotes, Wold Newton, Clee, Great Grimsby, Swinfleet, Flixborough, Normanby, Boston, Rasen, Louth, Lincoln, and elsewhere.

This seal symbolizes the Virgin who is crowned, seated on a carved throne, with ornamental corbel and with the Child sitting on the left knee.