What do Thomas Becket, a lion and the author of 'Out of Africa' have in common? They all lived in this medieval monastery, photographed for Country Life
Melanie Bryan recounts the fascinating history of Haverholme Priory.
If you’ve ever owned or been owned by a cat you’ll know that they like to loll in the most inconvenient places (on top of laptop keyboards in the middle of a high-pressure meeting, for example) and refuse to move until they, and only they, are ready.
The same feline stubbornness was rumoured to have greeted Victorian visitors to the country estate of Murray Edward Gordon Finch-Hatton, 12th Earl of Winchilsea and 7th Earl of Nottingham.
In the drawing room, guests would often be greeted by the Earl’s pet lion lounging on the sofa — he picked it up while touring Egypt. Anyone for tea? Or should that be does anyone want to be the tea?
A previously-unpublished image of the south façade.
Haverholme Priory was consecrated in 1139 as a rare Gilbertine monastery — a uniquely English medieval order which allowed nuns and canons to commune under the same roof. In 1164, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was said to have sought refuge at the property after falling out with Henry II for the umpteenth time.
It took six more years for the then King to rid himself of Becket, and six more Henry's until Haverholme Priory's life as a monastic retreat came to an equally abrupt end.
In 1539, when Henry VIII forced the Gilbertines to relinquish the land they’d drained and tended and made habitable for four centuries, Haverholme was first handed to Lord Clinton and then to a succession of different families.
The monk’s graves.
When Country Life was invited to pay a visit in the early years of the more genteel Edwardian era, the house had been in the possession of the Finch-Hatton’s — or the Earls of Winchilsea and Nottingham — since 1831.
This family was responsible for a series of huge renovations, including extensions constructed with local Ancaster stone. Now a 30-bedroom, four reception room mansion with a wrap-around terrace, Haverholme also boasted 70 cottages, small farms, a pub and 800 acres of woodland and a heronry.
The lion wasn't even the weirdest bit. In the garden, an array of presumably, Gilbertine monk’s coffins studded the lawn. And it is reported that, from time to time, the ghostly footsteps of monks and nuns could still be heard on the chipped stone terraces.
The beautiful conservatory that would go on to sell for £32.
One of the priory's ornamental gates.
The lion-owning 12th Earl died aged 47 in 1898 (the big cat was, at some point, gifted to a zoological society), just two years after he inaugurated the first-ever London to Brighton car run. He had also, to his great credit, formed the National Agricultural Union which campaigned for better rights for all agricultural workers. His widow, Lady Edith, remained at Haverholme.
He was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Henry Stormont Finch Hatton, the father of Denys Finch-Hatton of Out of Africa fame, and Haverholme's last owner.
By 1921, the post-war depression had put a massive strain on the family's finances, so the 13th Earl took the decision to sell the priory in order to preserve some of his other ventures. Unsurprisingly, Haverholme lingered on the market. In fact, it lingered on it for a very long time.
Five years later, the Earl had to sell off the estate in individual lots — the priory sold to a demolition company.
On November 13 of the same year, Country Life broke the news that all of the estate's deer had been culled, the woods felled and the heronry — heron's nest on the same site, every year — destroyed.
The conservatory was sold for £23 (£1,747 in 2026), a porch fetched £28 (£1,529) and the tower clock, which ended up in St Edith’s Church in nearby Anwick, made £25 (£1,365). Adverts for the 'CHEAP' Ancaster stone balustrades and Tudor chimneys appeared inside the magazine.
In 1927, a 52-year-old woman, Edith Fernie, was killed by a train at a level crossing. She was in the process of building herself a new home at Woodhall in Lincolnshire and was hoping to use a large quantity of Haverholme's Ancaster stone and ornamental gate. Rumour has it the now spare stone was used to fill in some holes in Liverpool's Docks.
A very small, ruined portion of the priory still stands in a field to this day.
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