There is evidence of a pre-Norman religious site, on which a Benedictine priory was founded by the first Norman Lord of Egremont William Meschin.

[2] Sculptural and charter evidence suggests the site was a principal centre of religious influence in the west of the county, and an extensive parish developed, with detached portions covering much of the Western Lakes.

William Meschin, supported by Archbishop Thurstan,[1] used the existing religious site to found a Benedictine Priory between 1120 and 1135.

Also granted were the chapel of Egremont, churches at Whicham and Bootle, land in Rottington and the manor of Stainburn at Workington.

[1] St Bees was therefore the principal religious centre in the west of Cumbria, and the large number of existing medieval grave slabs of the local nobility indicates its importance.

Later grants endowed the Priory with the churches of Workington, Gosforth, Corney and Whitbeck, and the chapels of Harrington, Clifton, Loweswater and Weddicar.

[7] In its most prosperous and active period, the 14th-15th centuries, the Priory had not only a large church, but a range of monastic domestic buildings.

[citation needed] None of the priors rose to great prominence in the wider church, though two became Abbots of York.

Despite this prosperity it is likely, as with many monastic houses, that the Priory was running down by the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, as the large chapel in the chancel south aisle at the east end appears to have become ruined about 1500, but not rebuilt.

In 1816 George Henry Law, Bishop of Chester, in whose diocese the Priory then was, founded the St Bees Theological College.

It closed in 1895, both at the prospect of falling numbers as it could not award degrees, and its vulnerability as a private institution as students now favoured the larger colleges that had been created using the St Bees model.

The 19th century was the era of restoration, helped significantly by the presence of the Theological College and the increasing prosperity of the village.

In the 1960s the central pew arrangement was removed to give a centre aisle, and in the 1980s a doorway was built between the church and the monastic choir, which now acts as one of the parish rooms.

In the 19th century two large cinquefoil openings were inserted by Butterfield into the medieval east walls of the transepts.

During an archaeological dig in 1981 in the area of the 14th-century ruined chapel at the east end, a number of medieval burials were uncovered, and the remains of an earlier building on a different alignment to the Priory was found.

It has now been determined with a high degree of probability that he was Anthony de Lucy,[16] a knight, who died in 1368 in the Teutonic Crusades in Prussia.

The probable effigies of both Maud and Anthony can be seen in the extensive history display in the priory, which includes the shroud in which he was wrapped.