Atherstone Priory was a priory in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The first monastic site in Atherstone was an Augustinian friary founded in the centre of the town in 1374 by Ralph, Lord Bassett of Drayton. Henry VII, as he was to become, took communion there before the

Battle of Bosworth The Battle of Bosworth or Bosworth Field was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York that extended across England in the latter half of the 15th century. Fought on 22 Augu ...

. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538 the nave became the town's parish church of St Mary, the chancel a grammar school and the remaining land leased to a Mr Cartwright. In 1837–41 a new priory, known as the Convent of the Rosary, was built by

Joseph Hansom Joseph Aloysius Hansom (26 October 1803 – 29 June 1882) was a British architect working principally in the Gothic Revival style. He invented the Hansom cab and founded the eminent architectural journal, ''The Builder'', in 1843. Career Ha ...

in the east of the town for Dominican nuns. After several years of financial hardship they were obliged to sell it in 1857 to the Benedictine nuns of St. Benedict's Priory, Colwich as a daughter house. The new priory convent, dedicated to St Scholastica, was founded in 1859 when a group of 19 nuns moved to Atherstone from Colwich. The priory was enlarged in 1873, again by Hansom. Faced by falling numbers and encouraged by the Vatican Council, St Scholastica's voted in 1966 to rejoin Colwich. On 31 July 1967 the eighteen members of the Atherstone community transferred to Colwich and the Atherstone property was sold. The graves of the nuns were moved to St Mary's churchyard and the building demolished. The site is now a housing estate.

References

Monasteries in Warwickshire Atherstone Demolished buildings and structures in England {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub