Chicksands Priory is a former monastic house at

Chicksands Chicksands is a village in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England, and part of the civil parish of Campton and Chicksands, whose population in 2007 was estimated to be 2,510. By the 2011 census the figure was accurately placed ...

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

History

The

Gilbertine The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely English religious order and came to an end in the 16th century at the ...

priory of Chicksands was founded about 1152 by Rohese, Countess of Essex, and her second husband Payn de Beauchamp, Baron of Bedford. Payn and Rohese endowed the priory at its foundation with the church of Chicksands and other Bedfordshire lands. The priory was of the

Gilbertine Order The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Gilbert of Sempringham, Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely England, English religious order and came to an ...

, a religious order formed by

Gilbert of Sempringham Gilbert of Sempringham (c. 1085 – 4 February 1189) the founder of the Gilbertine Order, was the only Medieval Englishman to found a conventual order, mainly because the Abbot of Cîteaux declined his request to assist him in organising a gro ...

(c. 1083–1189). It was only one of ten religious houses in England that housed both nuns and canons. By 1200 it was one of the largest and wealthiest Gilbertine houses. Fleeing the wrath of King Henry II after the Council of Northampton in 1164, Archbishop Thomas Becket is said to have spent a short time at Chicksands Priory on his way out of England. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the sixteenth century, the priory passed to the Snowe family and then in 1576 to the Osborne family, who owned it for almost 400 years. Chicksands was the residence of the famous letter-writer

Dorothy Osborne Dorothy Osborne, Lady Temple (1627–1695) was a British writer of letters and wife of Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet. Life Osborne was born at Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, England, the youngest of twelve children of Sir Peter Osborne, Lie ...

between her birth in 1627 and her marriage in 1654. Elements of the original building remain, but it has been altered over the years, not least in 1740 by the architect

Isaac Ware Isaac Ware (1704—1766) was an English architect and translator of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Early life Ware was born to a life of poverty, living as a street urchin and working as a chimney sweep, until he was adopted by ...

and in 1813 by

James Wyatt James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806. Early life W ...

, who designed the entrance hall, staircase and porch in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

. Sir

George Osborne George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born Gideon Oliver Osborne; 23 May 1971) is a former British politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the ...

's collection of "antiquities, old glass and great paintings" are mentioned "in his home at Chicksands Priory" by Arthur Mee in his 1939 volume on Huntingdon and Bedfordshire. The Crown Commissioners bought the Chicksands Priory estate on 15 April 1936, later renting it to Gerald Bagshawe, who lived there until it was requisitioned by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. In 1940, after a few months of

naval A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

occupation, the RAF followed and it became known, firstly, as

RAF Chicksands Ministry of Defence Chicksands or more simply MoD Chicksands is a UK Ministry of Defence station located 7.7 miles (12.4 km) south east of Bedford, Bedfordshire and 11.6 miles (18.7 km) north east of Luton, Bedfordshire. Now the location of ...

Priory. In 1950 the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

took over and continued on the site as a "listening post" until September 1995. Chicksands Priory is a

Grade I 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 ...

. The group "Friends of Chicksands Priory" was established in 1975 and tours of the building were offered to the general public until the summer of 1996. They returned to reopen the priory, following intense restoration during 1997 and 1998, in the spring of 1999. There were reports, at the time that the USAF pulled out of the base, in the local press ("The Comet") and local radio (

BBC Three Counties Radio BBC Three Counties Radio is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It broadcasts on frequency modulation, FM, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, digital TV and via ...

) that some of the departing personnel were taking "souvenirs" from the old buildings, causing damage and loss. Neither the US nor the British authorities would confirm this. In 2001 the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

television programme ''

Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned online in 2022 for two episodes released on YouTube. Created by television producer Tim ...

'' excavated sections of the site, uncovering part of what was believed to be the Infirmary

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

and several graves, and revealing possible details of the ground plan. The programme suggested that the Nuns' cloister lay under what is today a cobbled courtyard. The gardens were restored again by a British Army team, beginning in November 2019.

Burials

Burials at the priory included

Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex Rohese de Vere, Countess of Essex (c. 1110 – 1170 or after) was a noblewoman in England in the Anglo-Norman and Angevin periods. Married twice, she and her second husband founded the Gilbertine monastery of Chicksands in Bedfordshire. Life A ...

.John Leland, ''Itinerary'' vol. 5, 150

History

Burials

References

See also