Lavenham Priory is a 13th-century

Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Lavenham Lavenham is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is noted for its Guildhall, Little Hall, 15th-century church, half-timbered medieval cottages and circular walks. In the medie ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, England. Aubrey de Vere I was the

Lord of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

, according to the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086. In the early 13th Century De Vere gifted the property to an Order of Benedictine Monks. It was a monastic house until probably the early part of the 15th Century, after which it was acquired by Roger Ruggles - who made a fortune from the cloth industry. It is rumoured that Henry VIII's Comptroller was dispatched to Lavenham (and specifically to Lavenham Priory) and fined the then owner the equivalent today of £1 million for "displaying too much ostentatious wealth". This may explain the Tudor pargeting on the front of the building. For the past 20 years Lavenham Priory has operated as a boutique guest house.

References

External links

B&B website
Monasteries in Suffolk Dominican monasteries in England Grade I listed buildings in Suffolk Lavenham {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub