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Well, I come to the last of my series on Binham Priory and I decided to try the old look on the last shot.

I will now do things back to front and give you some history on the Priory ;)

Binham Priory

The founders, Pierre de Valognes and his wife Albreda, were Normans. Pierre was a nephew of William the Conqueror, and was one of the Norman barons among whom William shared out his newly-won kingdom. Pierre's seat was in Suffolk but he was also given a number of estates in west and north Norfolk, among them the entire village of Binham. It was here he founded a monastery. Although we don't have an exact date, Binham was certainly in the first wave, if not the earliest, of the Norman religious foundations in the county.

Pierre endowed the priory with the entire village of Binham, so the prior was also lord of the manor. The priory also received the tithes of thirteen churches on Pierre Valognes's other Norfolk estates. It was founded for eight monks. In the fourteenth century there were thirteen or fourteen, but by the time it was suppressed in May 1539 numbers had fallen back to six.

The building of the priory church began, as was customary, at the east end perhaps as early as c.1090. In these early parts you can see how the builders used the local gingery-brown sandstone conglomerate to work in with the Barnack limestone. Then for a period of about 25 years they used the creamy Caen stone shipped over from Normandy. After that it was all the shelly Barnack brought in by sea and river from Northamptonshire.

Building stopped and started with the seasons and with the availability of cash and materials. A major break in the programme is evident at the west end of the nave, and when work resumed it was in a new style. The west front had been reached by about 1244, so a building that had started in the Romanesque style was able to finish with a grand gothic flourish (see photo of west end).

The presbytery at the east end, the area under the central crossing tower, the north and south transepts, both aisles flanking the entire length of the nave and the choir in the eastern two bays of the nave all served as the priory church. The rest of the nave was the parish church. It was because of this dual function that the church was only partially demolished and why it had no west tower.

Demolition

When the King's Visitor, who was closing down the lesser monasteries, appeared in Binham in March 1538 the monks played up their connexions with the prestigious St Albans and won themselves another fourteen months' existence. However, they fell in 1539 in company with the greatest abbeys in the land.

The information above was taken from the Norfolk Archaeological Trust.

I was having trouble finding a sketch of the original building or something like it but FilmBB came across this :)

I hope you have all enjoyed this series.