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Wapentake and Petty Sessional Divisien of Buckrose - County Council Electoral Division of Leavening - Peer Law Union and County Court District of Malton.
Kirkham, containing 272 acres of land, situated on the left bank of the Derwent, was formerly an extra-parochial liberty, but now a parish for all rating purposes. There are seven houses in the parish, but no church. On the opposite side of the river is Kirkham Abbey station, on the York and Scarborough branch of the North-Eastern Railway. The soil is clay and sand, the subsoil clay. Rateable value, £370; population (1891), 40.
Here, in a beautifully-wooded spot by the river, stand the ruins of Kirkham Priory, the foundation of which had a very pathetic origin. Soon after the Conquest, Walter L'Espec was lord of Kirkham - which had then its church, hence its name - and other broad lands in Yorkshire. He had, by his wife Adeline, an only child, a boy, who, like his father, possessed high mental qualities, dauntless courage, and a comely form. He was early trained to daring feats of horsemanship, and one day, whilst galloping at a very rapid speed towards Firby, his horse stumbled near a stone cross by the wayside, and he was thrown to the ground with such violence that he instantly expired. The sorrowing father saw in this sad affliction the merciful hand of God, smiting him for his own salvation, and he determined to seek consolation from the throne of the Almighty by making "Christ his heir." He consulted his uncle, the rector of Garton, who advised him to build and endow three religious houses; and, in pursuance of this counsel, he erected three monasteries, beginning with Kirkham, where stood his mansion and near which his darling boy had been killed. This was in the year 1121, and the house was dedicated to the Holy Trinity. He endowed it with seven churches and their impropriations, and considerable lands in Yorkshire and Northumberland. The monks were of the Augustinian Order, which had been introduced into England a few years previously, and his uncle William, rector of Garton, became the first prior. The other two monasteries were founded at Rievaulx, in this county, and Warden, in Bedfordshire. Walter L'Espec was one of the principal commanders at the Battle of the Standard, fought on Cowton Moor, A.D. 1138, and, by his harangue and military skill contributed not a little to the success of the English arms in that victory. After the death of his wife, the veteran old soldier retired into the seclusion of the convent he had founded at Rievanix, and died in the year 1153.
KIRKHAM PRIORY fell in the wreck of the greater monasteries, its annual income being at that time £300 15s. 6d. gross and £269 5s. 9d. net. John Kylwyke was the last prior, and the deed of surrender was signed on the 8th of December, 1539. Kylwyke received £50 a year as a solatium for the loss of his priory, and the sub-prior and the sixteen canons various smaller sums. There were 442 ounces of plate, which the king's commissioners took possession of, and seven bells, one of which, bearing the date 1400 and an armorial device called a fylfoot, is in the church at Terrington, where the convent owned a small farm. The buildings were stripped of their leaden roofs and abandoned to the fury of the winds and the rain, and the ruin was hastened by sacrilegious vandals in later times, who used the priory as a quarry whence to obtain stones dressed and fashioned ready to hand. The site was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir Henry Knyvet and Ann, his wife; but Edward VI., in the third year of his reign, transferred it to the Earl of Rutland, who was descended from Adeline, the youngest sister of Walter L'Espec, the founder. In the fifth year of the reign of Elizabeth, permission was obtained from the Crown to alienate this manor, with those of Bilsdale, Stiperlow, and Rievanix, to Edward Jackman and Richard Lambert. This manor subsequently came into the possession of the Bamburghs, one of whom is said to have pulled down part of the Priory for material to build Howsham Hall with. Lady Milton purchased the estate from E. Clough Taylor, Esq., in 1878, for £31,000, and at her decease, in 1883, it came into the possession of her son, Cecil Foljambe, Esq., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., of Cockglode, Notts., the present owner.
The ruins are not extensive, but, if we may judge of the Priory from the beautiful gateway that still remains, it must have been a very magnificent structure. The site was partially excavated in 1886, under the direction of W. H. St. John Hope, Esq., F.S.A., who was thus enabled to locate the various parts, and complete a perfect ground-plan of the priory. The few remains now visible include a portion of the east end of the choir, part of the walls of the nave and of the south transept, the cloister court, the under croft of the frater, the outer parlour, the foundations of the chapter house, kitchen, &c., and a fragment of the great hall of the infirmary. The priory church was a spacious cruciform structure, measuring about 290 feet in extreme length, with a nave 130 feet long. This was the part allotted to the inhabitants of the district, The fragment of the chancel end remaining is of the most exquisite design and workmanship. The south transept had two chapels, and the north transept a lady chapel at the east side. The tower is said to have been blown down by a high wind in 1784. The bases of the eastern piers that supported it remain. The largest and most interesting fragment is the gatehouse, which was the principal entrance to the precincts. It is of later date and style than the main body of the priory, belonging apparently to the latter part of the 13th century. The archway is very slightly pointed, and surmounted by a large pediment, crocketed and terminating in a finial. In the upper part are two windows of two lights each, with trefoil heads under a continuous pedimented arcading; and on the walls are sculptured and mutilated figures, and ten shields of arms disposed in three rows. The four in the upper row are those of de Clare, Plantagenet, de Roos, and de Vaux. In the middle row, containing two, are the arms of Walter L'Espec, the founder, and Greystock; and in the lower row the arms of Roos twice repeated, Latimer of Danby, and one with a bend not yet identified.
The following persons were buried in the Priory : - William de Roos, son of Robert de Roos, surnamed Fursan (1258); Robert de Roos, son of William, buried in a marble tomb on the south side (1285); William, son of Robert de Roos, interred in a marble tomb on the north side (1316); William de Roos, son of the preceding, in a stone tomb on the south side of the great altar (1343); Alice de Roos, 1426; Edmund Pole, 1446; George Gower, 1484; and Ralph, Lord Greystock, in 1487.
Near the gateway above mentioned is the fragment of a cross, raised on a trefoiled base approached by three steps, and said by tradition to mark the spot where young L'Espec lost his life.
[Description(s) from Bulmer's History and Directory of East Yorkshire (1892)]
Scan, OCR and html by Colin Hinson. Checking and correction by Peter Nelson.