Alvingham Priory

About

Alvingham Priory was a Gilbertine priory in St. Mary, Alvingham, Lincolnshire, England. The Priory, established between 1148 and 1154, was a "double house", where religious of both sexes lived in two separate monasteries. They did not commonly communicate with one another, and there was an internal wall dividing their priory church. The superior of every Gilbertine house was the prioress, the prior being really an official of her house. The priory has left few visible remains. However, although the priory church has not survived, there are two churches within the priory's former precinct, both of which are pre-Reformation structures and appear to have been founded by the Anglo-Saxons. St Adelwold's church (the parish church of Alvingham) is the only church in England which is dedicated to St. Adelwold. St Mary's Church was originally a chapel belonging to the priory. It became the parish church of North Cockerington at the dissolution and is now under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The cartulary of the priory is preserved at the Bodleian Library. The priory was active until most of its inhabitants died from the Black Death. Men and women continued to join the house until the sixteenth century when all the monasteries of the Gilbertine Order were dissolved. Following the surrender of the house on 29 September 1538 pensions were paid to twenty people: a prior, seven canons, a prioress and eleven nuns.

Coordinates

53.4017, 0.0561

Address

Church Lane, Louth, LN11 0QD

Established

1141

Sources

• wikipedia: Alvingham Priory (CC BY-SA 4.0)