Muggleswick Grange (NZ044500)

© Copyright Oliver Dixon and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

A surprisingly substantial ruin lies in the grounds of the present-day Priory Farm on the northern edge of the hamlet of Muggleswick, Co.Durham, very near to the Northumberland border. It is in one very real sense a bit of a rarity, yet in another quite frustrating way an almost complete mystery.

It has come to be known as Muggleswick Grange, though that in itself is a bit of a guess – and, hey, we have to call it something. But the fact is that this feature in the landscape has been called many things over the years: a monastery, a grange, a hunting lodge and the curiously named ‘prior’s camera’. Now, I suppose, it is a farmyard folly.

Unlike its modest status today, Muggleswick was clearly once a very important place indeed. Its place-name suggests an ancient founding, certainly; and it is mentioned in the 1183 Boldon Book. It had been owned by the Bishop of Durham, but by 1183 was the property of the Prior of Durham – though the Bishop still retained local hunting rights, as well as much of the surrounding countryside.

Brother William of the priory built a ‘large house’ (possibly of timber) sometime before 1229; then Prior Hugh de Derlington erected what was described as a ‘camera’ (a large vaulted stone building) either next to or on the site of William’s house in the1250s/60s. It is the remains of this construction that we see today. The prior’s influence seems to have grown over the years, and the burgeoning estate would have been managed from this building – essentially amounting to a sprawling animal ranch to support the Prior of Durham, as well as providing a hunting ground, of course, for various high-ranking officials.

A 1464 document lists a hall, chapel, grange and dairy at Muggleswick, though they seem to have been in a state of decay. And so the decline, we assume, continued until the Dissolution, and thereafter through the reuse of much of the masonry for nearby stone buildings. There is little in the way of documentary evidence to enable us to accurately chart its long and gradual decline into what we see today – but it remains a very rare example of its kind: a substantial ruin of a monastic grange from the medieval period. It is Grade I Listed.

Oldest Holiday Resort? (NZ297471)

Finchale Priory is a somewhat isolated, ruinous affair tucked away in a bend of the River Wear about four miles north of Durham City. It has, rather curiously, been used as a holiday resort by one section of society or another for around 800 years.

Its roots lie in the twelfth century when it was the base for Saint Godric, a merchant-cum-sailor-cum-monk, who eventually ensconced himself there as a hermit. It is said that he lived to be more than 100 and to have sat out the last six decades of his life at Finchale. Needless to say, by the time he passed away in 1170, he had become something of a celebrity, having enjoyed many visits from the great and the good.

Soon afterwards, the little collection of hermit-like buildings at this quiet spot in the countryside was ‘developed’ by successive Priors of Durham into a Benedictine outpost of the mighty mother church down the road. For the next three hundred years or so the complex at Finchale slowly grew – though, in all honesty, it was never overly utilised.

The newly-formed Finchale Priory survived as a religious house until 1535 and the Dissolution. For much of its history during 13^th-16^th centuries it was effectively used as a holiday retreat for monks from nearby Durham, who would go there in groups of four for three-week periods and where they would ‘enjoy’ a slightly more relaxed timetable for the duration.

These days much of the surrounding countryside is taken up with the long-established ‘Finchale Abbey Caravan Park and Eco Village’ – see here.

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