If there's One Thing that emerges very clearly from this blog it's that One Thing Leads to Another...

Last year, my reading about ancient Knights (both Hospitaller and Templar), which was occasioned by visits to Maplebeck and Winkburn, uncovered their link with Ossington -- one of the rival claimants to which was Lenton Priory.

Still following?

There's not much left of the priory itself, but there are a number of related sites, and it all sounded like a nice little expedition. We ran out of time last year, but today -- which turned out to be sunny and windy in equal measure -- was designated Lenton Priory day.

First up, though, a return visit to Gedling Country Park, the one that's located where the "pit of nations" used to operate. It was hazy today (how, actually, can it be both windy and hazy...?), but we still had good views:






Picnic -- tick; walk -- tick; coffee -- tick. OK, so NOW it's Lenton Priory day...

A slowish journey round Nottingham's suburbs (some of them extremely pleasant, leafy, and opulent-looking) brought us to this:


Yes, really, that's all that's left...

Which is amazing, when you think that Lenton Priory was once by far the most powerful monastery in Nottinghamshire, and the tenth wealthiest in the country as a whole... Founded around 1108 by William Peveril, constable of Nottingham, and dedicated to the Abbey of Cluny in France (past whose remains our train from Lyon to Lille must have travelled only the other week), it had built up over the centuries quite considerable economic and political clout.

Its nemesis came from the usual direction. It was dissolved by Thomas Cromwell, acting on the orders of Henry VIII. By 1536, in the context of the Protestant Reformation then under way in Europe, and the monarch's personal beef with the Pope, the closure of English monasteries had begun. But there still remained the possibility for larger houses to reform rather than face dissolution -- until the so-called Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536. Robert Aske, its leader, challenged the authority of both the monarch and his right-hand man, so it's unsurprising that his movement encountered an iron-handed response, which set the tone for the following years:

"By 1537, it seems that the fall of the monasteries was inevitable, and Cromwell was looking for ways to 'encourage' the heads of the larger houses to 'surrender' their monasteries and all their lands to the king in return for pensions. The dissolution ended up being an enormous land-grab, with profits of resale going mostly to the king, though some monks were pensioned off."

Making an example of Lenton Priory (rich and powerful but also vulnerable for various reasons) therefore made sense to the king and his henchman. In 1538, Nicholas Heath, the prior, was convicted of treason, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered: "It was a very visual and graphic punishment designed to warn people off committing treason, but also sent a very clear message to all the other monastic houses in the region -- submit, or this is the fate that could await you."

The rest of the monks were evicted; the land and buildings were seized; and the site was stripped of anything valuable. Gradually, with people freely making use of its stone (the folks at Wollaton Hall, for example), the structures fell into disrepair and oblivion.

A short walk from the sole remaining pillar is Lenton St Anthony:



This "appears to have been originally associated with a chapel in the hospital of St Anthony at Lenton Priory -- a lesser secular almshouse for men -- with only the chancel surviving from this early manifestation. During restoration works in 1883-4, it was discovered that the fabric of the parish church had been formed from the walls of the old chancel of the chapel of St Anthony, with a new and wider nave being added later."

It's all a little confusing, especially as this church was known for a while as Holy Trinity (now the name of yet another church a couple of streets away):


Unfortunately, Lenton St Anthony is kept locked these days, but there are pictures of the interior here.



In the adjoining garden are the Lenton Priory Pillars. These are "tree-wraps", providing information about the site, and featuring motifs inspired by its history:




Also in that garden you can find what seems to be called the Lenton Priory Stone:



I'm rather confused by this, but James Winnett (author of the source cited above, and -- I gather -- the sculptor) says: "The panel to the north (winter) shows a scene before the Priory. This is a land of caves, ancient trees and the wodewose, the wild man of the forest. In the east (spring) the Priory's construction is shown alongside the day-to-day life of the monks and labourers; a utopian vision of bakers, beehives and agricultural beasts. In the south (summer), the scene is one of conflict, death and destruction following the 1538 dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII; the last abbot is executed, the stones are being broken up. In the west (autumn) the Martinmas Fair, the largest medieval fair in the East Midlands is in full swing; the Priory appears as a ruin in the background."

The date -- if I'm understanding any of this correctly -- is 2018, but I'm amazed at how little information there is...

Anyway, Winnett continues: "The stone's size and the style of the carvings draw on the 12th century Norman baptismal font from the Priory, one of the last tangible links to the site, which can be seen half a mile away in Holy Trinity Church, Lenton."

That's where we headed next.







Again, the church is locked. I'm sure they have their reasons, but it's a pity. There are pictures of the interior and the famous font here.

Lenton Priory, according to legend, was the target of a very physical attack by the devil... He (or she), irritated by all the prayers and bells, picked up a massive rock, and hurled it all the way from Castleton, Derbyshire. The projectile missed its mark, but can still be seen on a hillside in the district of Stapleford, about 6.5 km east of the priory...

It's known as the Hemlock Stone, and it's quite a thing... Standing 8.5 metres tall, it goes back some 200 million years, and is a natural formation, made up of two types of rock.



D.H. Lawrence was not a fan. The characters in Sons and Lovers saw it as "a little, gnarled, twisted stump of rock, something like a decayed mushroom, standing out pathetically on the side of a field". That's a bit mean, I think.

Local poet Henry S. Sutton, on the other hand, wrote an entire poem about it. It's a bit flowery for my taste -- "Serf, farmer, village-fool. Ages on ages | Of human life hast seen thee onward glide. | At last I stand upon thy withered side, | Another drop in that still flowing tide" -- but at least he shows a bit of respect.

Opposite the hillside where the Hemlock Stone is embedded you can find Bramcote Hills Park. We had time to explore only a fraction of it, the Walled Garden:



Excellent day out. Informative and intriguing.