Thetford Priory

One of the most important East Anglian monasteries, Thetford Priory was founded in 1103 by Roger Bigod of Norfolk, in lieu of a vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

In a 1390 visitation, visitors from Cluny found that there were then twenty-two monks; six daily masses, three of which were sung; and that tenth part of the bread was reserved for distribution to the poor.

[1] During the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a formal complaint was raised by the Mayors and burgesses of Thetford to Thomas Cromwell in 1539, arguing that many of the town's inhabitants would fall into extreme poverty because their livelihoods depended on pilgrims visiting the priory.

Henry VIII rejected a plan proposed by Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk to convert the priory into a collegiate church.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, another Grade I listed building,[5] and originally part of another medieval monastery, is 300 metres to the south, directly across the River Little Ouse.