Lanercost Priory - Medieval Monasteries England
Standing in the North-West of England, in the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, lie the church and extensive ruins of Lanercost Priory. A small house of Augustinian Canons, Lanercost was founded in 1169 by Robert De Vaux, on land which had only been in Norman hands for 11 years. The priory was largely constructed between 1169 and 1280. In this time patronage of the priory passed through marriage to the powerful Moulton family, and when Randolf Dacre kidnapped Margaret Moulton from Warwick Castle in 1315, it passed to the Dacres. The fortunes of the priory and the Dacre family were to be intertwined for the next four hundred years.
The priory suffered during the Anglo-Scottish wars, being sacked by the Scots in 1296, 1297 and 1346. Edward I also visited three times in 1280, 1300 and 1306-7. The last visit lasted nearly six months due to the king’s ill health, and in this time the country was run from Lanercost. However, accommodating the king and his retinue for such a long period of time put huge financial strain on Lanercost, a small house of around twelve canons (with the prior making 
13, the number symbolised the number present at the last supper). By the time he left the priory was verging on bankruptcy, and though it survived the priory stayed poor for the rest of its working life.
(Left: the rupstairs room where Edward I reputedly stayed)
In the early sixteenth century the patron of the priory was Thomas Dacre, who had become far richer and more influential than any of his forebears. A knight of the garter who played a prominent role at the battle of Flodden, his arms adorn the front of the church and his great tomb is the largest one in the priory. It would appear the priory’s fortunes were on the ascendant, but it was not to be. Just over a decade after Thomas’s death came the dissolution of the monasteries, and as a small house with low income Lanercost was one of the first to go.
The Dacres too suffered in this new religious climate. As a follower of the old Catholic faith, Thomas’s son William found himself without favour. It was difficult to tell who would receive the priory’s lands, but in the end they passed to another Thomas Dacre, illegitimate son of the earlier Thomas. Being bastard born, Thomas stood to inherit nothing, so he turned his back on the Catholic faith and re-invented himself as a protestant. He proved an enthusiastic follower of the new religion and a loyal servant of the crown.
After the dissolution part of the nave was walled off to become a parish church, while for a time the choir with its family tombs was maintained at the expense of William Dacre. However, with the increasing influence of his half-brother Thomas in the area, William and his family moved their worship to Carlisle Cathedral, and in 1559 Thomas Dacre was granted the Priory and its lands. He turned some of the buildings into a country house for himself, and his descendants lived there until the last of them died in 1716. The Priory ruins and estates then reverted to the Crown, which sold them to the powerful Howard family, who had lived at nearby Naworth Castle since they had married into the Catholic branch of the Dacre family in the late sixteenth century. By 1740 the nave had been fully roofed, and the church was restored in the ninteenth century by the architects Anthony Salvin and later Philip Webb. The church is still in use and boasts three Burne-Jones windows, while the great hall of Thomas Dacre’s house is now the village hall. The ruins are in the care of English Heritage.