The chapel was part of a Benedictine nunnery, purportedly founded to commemorate a battle with the Danes during their 9th century campaign which would end with the death of Edmund the Martyr.

[2] The nuns retained a messuage and 90 acres (36 ha) of land at Lyng, paying for a chaplain to service the chapel from the profits.

The ruins of the chapel which remain are described as "fragmentary"[5] although Nikolaus Pevsner recorded a surviving arch during the 1950s, possibly the north doorway.

It was said that it was founded for the nuns to pray for the souls of those killed in a battle between the Danes and King Edmund's Anglo-Saxons which may have occurred near to the site of the chapel.

[8][10][11] When the nuns left Lyng in the twelfth century they retained the income derived from holding the annual fair on 20 November (St Edmund's day).