Emmaus Partnership
The ruins of an historic Leicestershire priory have been sold by the Rosminian Oder of the Catholic Church for £10, in deal that will see the crumbling ruin preserved and utilised for future generations.
Grace Dieu Priory, between Thringstone and Belton, was an Augustinian nunnery founded in c1240 by Roesia de Verdun. It was a large priory with 16 nuns in 1377. It was closed as part of the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1538 and in 1539 the priory became the residence of John Beaumont. It was also the childhood home of the early 17th century dramatist Francis Beaumont. In 1696 it was bought by Sir Ambrose Phillipps, a successful London lawyer of the Middle Temple and King’s Sargeant to James II. He had most of the buildings pulled down and the site was in ruins by 1730.
Now te site has been sold by its former owners the Rosminian Order after more than two years of discussions. The Grace Dieu Priory Trust, which was set up in the 1990s to open up the ruins to the public and maintain the site, is now the owner of the centuries-old ruins and the land they sit on.
The “peppercorn” sale will allow the trust and its associated Friends volunteer group to continue allowing access and organising events and research at the site, it said. Chairman of the trust, David Whitt, said it had cost about £2,000 in legal fees for the value of £10 to be agreed.
The Rosminian Order had also owned the nearby Grade II-listed Grace Dieu Priory School. The school, which was built in 1833, closed in 2020 and in 2022 the 66-acre site was sold to FCV International Football Academy.
Mr Whitt said: “As a boy I used to cycle past the ruins, they were just a heap of stones in the middle of a field.
“We formed in about 1996 and after lots of conservation work to the priory, eventually the priory was ready to open to the public. We were approached about two and a half years ago to see if we would be interested in converting the lease we held on the land into a freehold – we said yes please straight away.”
The first main event under the new ownership will be a carol service among the priory ruins on 1 December.
Longer-term goals for the trust include building a new bridge from the nearby Sustrans path to the priory site to bypass a path that runs over an ageing brick culvert, and seeking permission from Historic England for an archaeological dig within the grounds of the scheduled monument.
