THE PRIORY
After the Dissolution, the plate belonging to the Priory and. all valuables were carried off to London. The Conventual buildings were destroyed and the material sold. Two years later, in 1538, the estate with all its appurtances was sold to John Neville on very reasonable terms ( a yearly payment of £14—18—8 to King Henry VIII) Specially mentioned in this transaction were the rights to the ferry. This seems to be the first mention that has been made in any records of the ferry, but it must have been widely used to have it specially mentioned in the deeds. John Neville erected a house but we do not know if he lived here. His second wife was Catherine Parr of Kendall, and on the death of her husband John Neville (Lord Latimer) she married King Henry VIII and survived him. The Priory stayed in the Latimer family and Lord Latimer’s granddaughter married Henry, 8th Earl of Northumberland who then lived at Spofforth Castle. In 1585 this earl was accused of plotting with Mary Queen of Scots against Queen Elizabeth 1. He was imprisioned in the Tower of London but committed suicide. His widow then married Francis Fitton and the Nun Monkton estate then passed to that family. After this the estate changed hands many times — John Carvile - Marjoribanks (1644) Paylors (1650—1748) Samual Jollyfe Tuffnell 1786. In 1789 George IV, then Prince of Wales, lunched at the Priory after York Races. The Butler Family followed (brother of the Earl of Kilkenny whose eldest son became Viscount Mountgarret). Then the Brown family (he was a Proctor at York Minster) and in 1860 it was bought by Isaac Crawhall, Esq., who was succeeded by his son George and later by Walter - nephew of George. The Priory was sold in 1928 to Captain C. Whitworth and again in 1946 to Lieut. Col. George Aykroyd. The Paylors must have rebuilt the house. The present building was built in the time of William and Mary and was designed by a Dutch architect. It was built of hand made bricks. There was a maze in the garden and 90 acres of pasture land attached to the estate. A special feature of the grounds was the collection of lead statues which are unique and very valuable. They are supposed to be the work of a Dutch sculptor named Andrew Carne in approx. 1688. There is a very peculiarly carved stone in the wilderness also attributed to Dutch workmen. — 5 — On it are the arms of the Paylor family and many scenes depicting village life. There is an old legend that there was a tunnel passing from the priory under the River Nidd and to Red House which was used at the time of the battle of Marston Moor, but this has never been found. The battle of Marston Moor was fought in July 1644 between Cavaliers led by Prince Rupert and Roundheads led by Oliver Cromwell. The Roundheads were victorious and the Royalists fled, many of them over to Nun Monkton, Thorpe and Ouseburn. Nun Monkton was Royalist. A pike man seriously wounded wandered to the priory and later died there. His full equipment consisting of pot helmet, gorgel, breast and back plates and tassets with sword and 15 ft pike is now in the Kirk Museum at York. Strangely, this armour was presented to the museum by a London gentleman but it had been in the possession of the Marjoriebank family who owned the priory at the time of the civil war. Overlooking the church yard there is a ‘tithe barn’ which is in an excellent state of preservation and a little further along there is the site of the nuns fish pond now only a beck. Also there is the ‘Nuns Walk’ an avenue of trees which led from the priory grounds to the park, but which is not now used as such.
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