Priory ruins sold by church in £10 deal

The ruins of a Leicestershire priory have been sold by the Catholic church for £10.

The site of Grace Dieu Priory, between Thringstone and Belton, has been sold by its former owners the Rosminian Order after more than two years of discussions.

The Grace Dieu Priory Trust, which was set up in the 1990s to open up the ruins to the public and maintain the site, is now the owner of the centuries-old ruins and the land they sit on.

The "peppercorn" sale will allow the trust and its associated Friends volunteer group to continue allowing access and organising events and research at the site, it said.

Chairman of the trust, David Whitt, said it had cost about £2,000 in legal fees for the value of £10 to be agreed.

The priory dates back to 1239 as a community of Augustinian Catholic women.

It closed as a religious institution in 1538 during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries.

The building was stripped of its pews, church windows and steeple.

It was later converted into a Tudor house but from the late 16th Century, the buildings fell into disrepair.

The Rosminian Order had also owned the nearby Grade II-listed Grace Dieu Priory School.

The school, which was built in 1833, closed in 2020 and in 2022 the 66-acre site was sold to FCV International Football Academy.

Mr Whitt said: "As a boy I used to cycle past the ruins, they were just a heap of stones in the middle of a field.

"We formed in about 1996 and after lots of conservation work to the priory, eventually the priory was ready to open to the public.

"We were approached about two and a half years ago to see if we would be interested in converting the lease we held on the land into a freehold - we said yes please straight away."

The first main event under the new ownership will be a carol service among the priory ruins on 1 December.

Longer-term goals for the trust include building a new bridge from the nearby Sustrans path to the priory site to bypass a path that runs over an ageing brick culvert, and seeking permission from Historic England for an archaeological dig within the grounds of the scheduled monument.

The Rosminian Order confirmed the sale with the BBC.

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