Maxstoke Priory

The substantial remains are on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register due to their poor condition.

[1] In 1330 Sir William de Clinton, later Earl of Huntingdon, bought the advowson of Maxstoke parish church.

By 1336 Sir William had changed his intentions and decided to turn the college into a priory for Augustinian monks.

In 1336 Bishop Northburgh approved the appropriation of the churches of Long Itchington and Maxstoke to the fledgling priory.

In 1343 William de Clinton was successful in a petition to appropriate the nearby church of Shustoke to the fledgling priory.

Also in this year the manor of Shustoke, together with the advowson of the church and chapel at Bentley, were obtained from Lord John Mowbray.

These were soon exchanged, by Lord John de Clinton, for the ancient moated manor of Maxstoke together with its adjacent park.

Further endowments followed including the church and advowson of Aston Cantlow (the prior and convent of Studley releasing all their rights).

1360 saw the prior of Maxstoke commissioned by Bishop Stretton to enclose Brother Roger de Henorebarwe as an anchorite (hermit) at the chapel of Maryhall by Torworth in a building assigned for the purpose.

In February 1400 a complaint was sworn by Sir William Beauchamp that Friar John of Maxstoke and others had broken into his house at Aston Cantlow.

Lord Clinton granted, in 1408, rents worth £10 annually from his lands in Dunton Bassett in Leicestershire.

Fifty years later Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, bequeathed £100 to the priory to purchase land to enable the support of a further canon.

It was further stipulated that one of the canons should celebrate a daily mass for him, his family and ancestors at the altar in the north aisle of the priory church.

A set of account books from the priory dating from the fifteenth century have survived and are preserved in the Bodleian Library.

They show that the precinct walls contained extensive fishponds, orchards of both apple and pear together with a garden which produced flax and hemp.

The priory also maintained beef and dairy herds which were sold locally at Coleshill and other nearby markets.

These documents reveal that the lands at Aston Cantlow, Fillongley, Long Itchington and Yardley formed an ecclesiastical manor with the prior at its head.

Also during Prior Grene’s tenure are a series of accounts which record payments to minstrels, jesters and players.

Four years later a cope was pledged to Lady Elizabeth Clinton for the large sum of £25 and jewels worth £17 were sold.

One of the commissioners, George Giffard, wrote to Cromwell on 3 August 1536 reporting the completion of the survey of the house.

Two years later, in 1538, the priory, and other church lands, was granted to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

An engraving made in 1729 by Nathaniel Buck show a nave, transepts and chancel converging on a central tower.

The church had a cruciform plan with a nave and choir of equal lengths with transepts and a central tower.

The cloisters lay to the south of the church and consisted of the usual monastic buildings of chapter house, dormitory and refectory.

It is built of irregularly coursed sandstone and contains the remains of doorways, archways and ogee arches.

It may have been hidden at the time of the dissolution of the priory and was for many generations owned by the Haddon family who used it as a sugar bowl.

It is also possible that the local parish church of St. Michael may have also served as the cappella ante portas (chapel outside the gates) of the priory.