The priory was a 12th-century Augustinian foundation, dedicated to St Oswald, supported initially by Robert de Lacy of Pontefract and Thurstan of York.

[4] Sir John Field, the first Copernican astronomer of note in England, is believed to have studied at Nostell in his youth under the tutelage of Prior Alured Comwn.

[6][7] Nostell was purchased in 1567 by Sir Thomas Gargrave, a High Sheriff of Yorkshire, Speaker of the House of Commons and President of the Council of the North,[8] from the 6th Baron Mountjoy for £3,560.

In the nineteenth century the family prospered from the exploitation of coal under the Nostell estate, and later from leasing land at Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire after iron ore deposits were found by Rowland Winn, 1st Baron St Oswald, in 1858; Lord St Oswald later played an important role in the construction of the Trent, Ancholme and Grimsby Railway and the development of the Lincolnshire iron industry (from 1864) and steel industry (from 1891).

The Nostell Priory art collection includes The Procession to Calvary by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, William Hogarth's Scene from Shakespeare's The Tempest–the first depiction in a painting of any scene from Shakespeare's plays–and a self-portrait by Angelica Kauffman, as well as Rowland Lockey's copy of the painting by Hans Holbein (c. 1527 but now lost in a fire) of Sir Thomas More and Family; this copy was commissioned in 1592 by the More family and came to Nostell in the 18th century, and is said to be the most faithful to the destroyed original.

These pieces furnish the tapestry room, as do a pair of large Venetian vases made of wood inlaid with ivory and semi-precious stones.

Another room open to visitors is the butler's pantry, with a display of Winn family silver, in the adjacent strongroom cabinets.

Built on the site of a medieval quarry, the Menagerie included a lioness, monkeys, bats and a cock pit, as well as a keeper's lodge and ice house.

[16] The main lawn and the lower fields to the east of the Priory have been used for various large and small events over the years, however, it was "Central Yorkshire Scout County" in 2000 which provided a fundamental change to how the grounds could be used.

The organisation chose Nostell Priory as the site for its year 2000 "Millennium Camp", which was to attract around 2,500 people from across the Yorkshire Scouting movement.