More information : Site of Heynings Priory (SK 846853; fig. 00) lies at 19m above OD on a low knoll of Cover Sands over Boulder Clay/Till, 2-3m above its immediate surroundings. Its elevation is particularly marked above a shallow stream valley to the W and N and is reflected in the field name Lodge Hill. The Cistercian nunnery of Heynings has hitherto been identified with earthworks at Hermit Dam in Lea (2) or alongside St Mary's church at Knaith (3). The present identification with field remains at Park Farm South rests partly on the nature of the earthworks and associated finds in each case, and partly on documentary and other considerations that render the alternatives untenable.
The place name means 'the enclosures' and is elsewhere used in the sense of 'park' (OE *haegen, ME haining; (a) it survives in a group of field names Hearings, centred SK 849857, and Hearings Wood, centred SK 851851 and clearly applied not simply to the monastic site, but to a block of land - effectively a township - at the E end of Knaith parish.
The nunnery was founded for brethren and sisters after 1135, probably in the reign of Stephen or early in the reign of Henry II and endowed by Rayner de Evermue, lord of Knaith, with 'all the wood where they dwell' and other land and rights in Knaith. The advowson of Upton church was included, but that of Knaith was reserved to Rayner and his heirs. Gifts later in the century principally in Upton and Kexby consolidated the priory's demesne to the four carucates in Upton recorded c.1200: later gifts by the 14th century brought holdings notably in Sturton-by-Stow and Dunstall.
(b) There was a prioress, subprioress, thirteen nuns and two lay sisters in 1376 and a prioress and eleven nuns at its dissolution in 1539. The site was granted to Sir Thomas Heneage and his wife Katherine and at his death in 1553 passed by marriage to Lord Willoughby of Parham, along with the manor of Knaith.
(c) By the time antiquarian interest revived in the early 19th century, knowledge of its location was completely lost. The priory and its conventual church were dedicated to the BVM. Despite a small endowment, very limited share in the monastic wool trade, and constant claims of poverty, visitations indicate a developed conventual layout, referring to a cloister and cloistral precinct, dormitory, convent school for children who had to sleep elsewhere than in the dormitory, private accommodation for patron's family (like Dame Margaret Darcy), infirmary, and by implication accommodation for lay sisters and boarders: extensive repairs were undertaken in the early 15th century. Heneage's grant in 1540 was 'the house and site of the late priory...the church, steeple and churchyard of the same'.
(d) The nunnery's early quasi-Gilbertine organisation might be reflected in a bi-partite layout within the precinct.
(e) There was also a separate chapel of Heynings, perhaps a capella ante portas like those surviving at Cistercian houses at Kirkstead and Coggeshall (in Essex), and documented at Stixwould.(f) Reference to 'messuages in Heynings' in 1553 hints at the possibility of some secular settlement at the priory's gates for the chapel to serve. Some occupation may have persisted here under the name of Knaith Park (see Knaith (4)): it is by this name that Park Farm South is labelled on the 1st edn OS 1" map, though only the two farms are shown. Late 19th-century development of Knaith Park, initially in Knaith parish and spreading only latterly in the 20th century into Lea, results from the location of the Great Northern Railway's Lea station away from the village and actually on the Knaith side of the parish boundary.
(g) The varied state of preservation of the earthworks, from good to over-ploughed and selectively in-filled, makes overall interpretation difficult, and dumping and extension of farm buildings continue to erode the remains. On the S, an interlinked series of leats, generally less than O.5m deep but in places embanked for greater depth, of which the present N-facing stream must once have formed part, are a remarkable survival. One branch feeds through shallow ponds at 'a' and 'b' on plan; the latter contains two low islands and has a small elongated
pond or 'tank' alongside. The leats feed into a moat-like feature ('c'-'d') that is in places up to 1.5m deep and 10m wide, and forms the S and SE sections of a precinct enclosure. On the W the stream changes direction significantly to accommodate itself into the moat-like feature and presumably forms the W
boundary. Where it changes direction again at 'e', a broad deep ditch, though partly filled, strikes eastward and may indicate the N side of the enclosure, whose circuit on the NE has been obscured by later farm buildings. Alternatively, but perhaps
less likely, this could have been a drain (? rere-dorter), and a division could be marked by the slight ditch ('f'-'g') that forms a continuous E-W alignment across the site. Much of this inner enclosure has been levelled and occupied by the 18th-
century farmhouse, its yard and gardens. Levelling for the lawn S of the house revealed extensive stone debris, foundations and roof tile: excavation at 'h' uncovered at least two inhumations, aligned W-E and without accompanying goods, and digging foundations for farm buildings nearby has revealed at least five and perhaps as many as twelve further burials;
(h) at 'i', the SW quadrant is occupied by a tight group of four fishponds. On the N, an outer precinct is clearly defined on the NW by a ditch in places 1-1.5m deep and up to 8m wide. Within it the area may formerly have been divided by ditches into smaller compartments: extensive hollows and mounds though difficult to interpret in detail may indicate the location of buildings or their later robbing for stone; at 'j' are the foundations of a large barn-like building, some 16 x 8m. To the E, the limits of the precinct are most clearly marked by a massive headland bank ('k'-'l') with ridge and furrow beyond to the E. The headland, and that to the S, were overploughed after the monastery's abandonment by extending the earlier ridge and furrow westwards, probably to the new field boundary. The overploughing cut at right angles three broad ridges at 'm', and at 'n' reduced presumed sites of earlier buildings to smoothed amorphous lumps. The end of a massive building, approximately 15m wide, survives at 'o', standing on a marked platform: it is overlain by 20th- century farm cottages and gardens, but two degraded wall foundations protruding E from them may indicate its length. Perhaps significantly, it lies approximately in the middle of the N side of the monastic complex, where it is approached by a hollow-way from the NW almost parallel with the modern road from Lea to Gainsborough. Scarps and irregularities alongside it at 'p' and others apparently outside the precinct at 'q' may represent secular settlement at the nunnery's gate. Cropmarks of ditches and ponds in the ploughland W of the earthworks raise the possibility of further features ancillary to the monastic site. This lay, however, within the late medieval deer park of Knaith Park, and may, in part at least, be former woodland features similar to the ponds recorded in Cocklode Wood at Bullington and Great West Wood at Goltho, for example.
(i) It is uncertain whether the newspaper report of 'a great many spear heads and battle axes and skeletons' found 'in the grass field by the side of the highway leading to Kexby at Knaith Park Farm' has any relevance to this site.(j) (1-2)
The features described by the previous authorities were visible primarly as earthworks, but some as cropmarks, and mapped from good quality air photographs.
(Morph No. LI.673.15.1-11)
This description is based on data from the RCHME MORPH2 database.
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