Stixwould Priory

Stixwould Priory stands in the flat fenland of Lincolnshire, once home to a Cistercian nunnery founded by Lucy, countess of Chester, between 1129 and 1135. The house changed hands several times: Benedictine nuns arrived after the first suppression in 1536, and in 1537 it became a Premonstratensian canonesses’ convent. The priory was finally closed in 1539 and left only fragments behind. One of these is the porter’s lodge, now part of a working farmhouse in the parish of Stixwould and Woodhall. The priory’s leaders are recorded in two short lists. Hugh served as prior in the early 13th century, Geoffrey appears in the 1220s, and Gilbert of Eton held the post in 1308. On the women’s side, Margaret Gobaud was elected prioress in 1274, Isabel de Dugby led the house from 1304 to at least 1317, and Mary Missenden became the last prioress in 1537. These names give a glimpse of the community that once prayed and worked here. Visitors today find the priory’s remains built into a modern farmstead. The old porter’s lodge forms part of a house still in daily use, set among the wide, quiet fields of the Lincolnshire fens. The site is quiet and unadorned, a place where the past shows through the present in stone and memory rather than in grand ruins.