Voluntary grants of alms by the leading families of Nerford and Creake and by the faithful of the neighbourhood seem to have built up resources sufficiently to warrant elevation from Hospital to Priory and thence to Abbey, which happened in 1231.

There would finally be numerous servants, tailors, laundresses and their assistants, the messor (harvest reaper[2]), shepherds and cowherds for the farm, as well as residents of the hospital.

The abbot appealed to the king as patron of the house, and Richard III, 'moved with pite' gave the abbey by way of alms towards the rebuilding of the handsome sum of £46 13s.4d., to be paid out the revenues of the lordship of Fakenham.

Robert Walsingham, appointed abbot in 1491, began extensive rebuilding of the quire and presbytery, and Sir William Calthorpe left £74 towards the completion of the work.

[4] The abbey site and estate was given to Lady Margaret Beaufort in 1507, and ended up in the ownership of Christ's College, Cambridge.

Peter M. Barber & Michelle P. Brown, "The Aslake world map", Imago Mundi, The International Journal for the History of Cartography, Volume 44, 1992 - Issue 1, p. 24, this page of article reproduced at Taylor and Francis Online on 29 July 2008.