| Summary : Following the dissolution of Axholme Priory (SE 80 SW 3) in 1539 the estate was granted, in 1540, to John Candysshe of Westbutterwick who, in the later 16th century, converted the priory into a manor surrounded by gardens and orchards. About a century later the estate was owned by the Cartaret family and the manor house, which had become ruinous, was pulled down to be replaced by a smaller house in 1688. This house was rebuilt in the mid 19th century as a farmhouse and in the 1960s was partly demolished, lowered to a single storey and converted to a storehouse for Low Melwood Farm. The former house lies on the moated island which formed the inner court of the charterhouse and incorporates medieval fragments including the carved shield of the Mowbray family. A stone column from a priory building is now located within a sealed basement room. It also includes a now blocked 15th century doorway which is thought to have been part of the first post-Dissolution house. Geophysical survey on the moat island has also located what is thought to be the buried remains of the post-Dissolution manor house. Some of the earthworks on the island are the remains of the manor house's gardens. These include linear banks forming raised walkways and a small prospect mound in the south east corner of the island. |
More information : HOUSE AND GARDEN (SE 806 019 GCE). Subsequent to the dissolution of
the priory in 1539 the some of the priory buildings were converted
into private house with gardens. De la Pryme described it as `a
great and stately building many stores high ...., and the whole was
encompass'd with a huge ditch or moat'. He goes on to say that
`There was the finest gardens, orchards, and flowers there that ever
I saw; but now there is, I believe, none of these things to be seen,
for, about ten years ago, all or most part being ruinous was pulled
down, and a lesser house built out of the same' (7c). The later
house may probably be equated with a former farmhouse, now used as an
agricultural building which may incorporate fragments of a monastic
building within it. This house is enclosed by a partly water filled
moat. It is uncertain whether or not this moat surrounded the
conventual buildings of the priory. It may be post-medieval in
origin and represent an element of a formal garden. However on the
moat platform earthworks of a formal garden may be traced. It is
also thought that earthworks extending into the arable field south of
the moat are part of this garden layout. It is not known when these
gardens fell into disrepair although the house may be shown to be a
simple farmhouse by the mid nineteenth century. The above
description is summarised from a detailed RCHME level 3 survey of
Axholme Priory carried out in October 1991. It was surveyed at scale
of 1.1000 and the results of the survey deposited in the NMR. (1) |