Monks Kirby Priory
Geoffrey's bride was Ælgifu, daughter of Leofwin of Newnham, a relative of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva.
[8] After Geoffrey's death, his estates, including the lands around Monks Kirby reverted to the King, who subsequently granted them to Nigel d'Aubigny, the father of Roger de Mowbray whose descendants were to become Earls of Nottingham and Dukes of Norfolk.
He went on to become Prior of Whitby where he played a key part in that town's establishment and is said to staged an archery competition for Robin Hood and Little John.
[11] Little is known of the layout of the monastery though it must have had a library and possibly a Scriptorium as one manuscript from the Priory is still in existence, a beautiful illuminated work from the late 12th century.
The Balliol manuscript includes a "Long account of how an image of the virgin and child in the church of Kirkebi frustrated two thieves one of whom was afterwards converted and paid regular annual visits to the Priory.
[14] In another sign of the priory's growing importance in the thirteen century, in 1266 Henry III granted the monks a fair at Midsummer and a weekly market at Kirby.
[15] However, the rebuilding happened after almost of century profound disuption:the Hundred Years War with France saw the collapse of the monastic community, with the Abbot at Angers losing control through much of the period as - across the country - the revenues of French-led (so called "alien") priories were claimed by the King, and foreign monks were expelled.
By 1415 the connection between Monks Kirby and Axholme was already over 350 years old as both belonged to the Anglo-Saxon Leofwin,[18] were given to Geoffrey de la Guerche at the time of the Conquest,[18] and subsequently granted to the Mowbray family.
The estate was held by a number of different families in the fourteenth and early fifteenth century until, on 11 November 1433, John Fildyng, or Feilding bought it.
Meanwhile, the King granted the rectory and the advowson of the vicarage and the income from the collection of local tithes to his foundation of Trinity College, Cambridge.
There were several owners over the following 80 years, including the family of Lady Jane Grey whose father, Henry, the first Duke of Suffolk probably paid for the impressive wooden ceiling still in place in the Church.
[21] In the 1600s the Manor was bought by the powerful Countess of Buckingham who passed it to her grandson Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh (see Monks Kirby).
The Feilding family thus came to own both the historic Newnham Paddox estate and the lands that in the medieval period had belonged to the Priory Church of Monks Kirby.
[24] The distinctive parapets were added in the late eighteenth century and the church owes much of its current interior appearance to its most recent major restoration, in 1869.
[25] Trinity College divested itself of substantial landholdings around Monks Kirby following the Second World War, but retains the benefice and continues to be involved in the church's affairs.
