Journeying northwards today from Lenton Abbey along a route almost parallel to the M1 motorway, it is quite likely that we are treading in the footsteps of thirteenth century travellers. Some of those travellers would have been monks on their way to and from an establishment in the parish of Greasley in a "beautiful valley" - Beauvale Priory.

For this they would owe a debt of thanks to Nicholas de Cantelupe who founded the monastery in his park at Greasley or Gryselye as it was than known. At the start of the Hundred Years's War, Nicholas (a soldier friend of King Edward III) and his men were engaged in a battle against the French. Despite his ventures on the continent he spared time to found the monastery to the Carthusian order in 1343, that's just three years before the Battle of Cressy. For some two hundred years, a prior and a dozen monks (rising on at least one occasion to nineteen) prospered by farming and, according to one source of information, digging coal. Coal mining in the area only ceased in the latter part of the twentieth century and farming continues to this day.

Beauvale Priory was the last to be founded in England and the first to suffer at the Dissolution of Monasteries under King Henry VIII. The buildings fell into disrepair and the remains are now incorporated into the buildings of Beauvale Abbey Farm. The ravages of time and coal mining beneath the area have had an obvious detrimental effect on the ruins. Right in the centre of this picture, from a position a little further down the lane, it is possible to make out timbers supporting the original walls. It is at times like this that I could do with a better zoom facility on my camera as the Priory now stands on private land and this is as close as it is possible to get without trespassing.

Nicholas de Cantelupe's manor house was about a mile away from the Priory and stood close to the Church of St Mary (in the background of this image). He fortified the house and it became known as Greasley Castle. This is far more accessible than the Priory and, if you know where to look, you can still see the remains of the fourteenth century building as they have once again been incorporated into farm buildings still in use today.

Not much to look at in this day and age but the humps and hollows in the adjacent field are the remains of the moat at Greasley Castle. Elsewhere in the village, many of the buildings have stones in their walls that came from the Priory. Nicholas owned lands in both Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and today his name is remembered in several areas such as Cantelupe Road and the Cantelupe Centre, both in Ilkeston. He was in fact Lord of Ilkeston even though his residence shown here at Greasley Castle was in the neighbouring county. Until the closure of Ilkeston's amalgamated Hallcroft, Gladstone and Cavendish Schools, they too went by the name of Cantelupe.

Another link between Beauvale Priory and Ilkeston is the name John Houghton. Houghton was born in Essex in 1487 and joined the Carthusian order some twenty eight years later in the Charterhouse of London where he stayed for eight years. He then became Prior of Beauvale but only remained in Nottinghamshire for six months being recalled to become Prior of Charterhouse following the death of his predecessor. To cut a long story short, this was the time of Henry VIII and after refusing to swear the Oath of Supremacy he, along with the Priors of Beauvale and Eppeworth who were visiting at the time, became one of the first English Catholic Martyrs. Hung, drawn and quartered his name, now beatified, is remembered in the Roman Catholic School that opened on Abbot Road at Kirk Hallam in 1965. If you would like a more detailed account of John Houghton or Beauvale Priory and Greasley Castle the Nottinghamshire History and Archaeology web site is an excellent place to start. Try these pages -
Beauvale Priory - Greasley Castle.
I would also like to thank the staff at Ilkeston Library for there help in providing access to archived material during the research for this page.