Visit Bolton Priory

A ruined 12th-century Augustinian monastery in a private estate in Wharfedale, North Yorkshire, Bolton Priory stands beside the River Wharfe, founded as early as 1154 on land granted to the black-robed Augustinians by Lady Alice de Rumilly. For nearly four hundred years, the Priory thrived and building work to expand it was still ongoing at the Priory in 1539 when its closure was forced under the dissolution of the monasteries. As a result of swift action by the last Prior, Richard Moone, the villagers were given permission to continue to use the nave of the Priory as their parish church, the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Cuthbert website.



The church underwent restoration in the 19th and 20th century, notably to add stained glass designed by Augustus Pugin. The church sits at the heart of the privately-owned Bolton Abbey Estate, which is opened to the public with a charge of £7 per car and offers - we are told - 30,000 acres of countryside, with 80 miles of footpaths, and the chance to see the Barden Tower, the ruined hunting lodge of the 10th Lord of Skipton, who used it for hunting trips in the ancient Forest of Barden.

For more, see http://www.boltonabbey.com/whattodo/priory.htm

_{^Picture © John Sparshatt used under a Creative Commons license^}