By the fourteenth century, there was some moral backsliding and in 1328, an inquiry was set up to investigate illicit activities of monks and nuns.

Large iron-bound gates were erected to ensure the nuns stayed inside the grounds, and there existed rumours that tunnels connected the nunnery to the village.

[2] The Cannington Nunnery built the adjacent Church of St Mary and survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536.

[1] From 1807 to 1835, Cannington Court was used by a community of Benedictine nuns who had returned to England following the French Revolution.

The central, three-storey porch is made of ashlar stone and has slender Ionic columns on pedestals on either side.