Mount Grace Priory

Mount Grace Priory stands in woodlands within the North York Moors National Park, near East Harlsey in North Yorkshire. Founded in 1398 by Thomas Holland, Duke of Surrey, it was the last monastery built in Yorkshire and one of the few established in England between the Black Death and the Reformation. The Carthusian Order designed the priory with a church and two cloisters, the Great Cloister housing seventeen monk cells and the Lesser Cloister six for lay brothers. After the Duke’s execution in 1400, the priory struggled financially until royal grants restored its income. By the 15th century, it received lands and revenues from Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI, including alien priories and annual payments. The priory became known for its role in preserving contemplative texts, with monks such as John Norton and Richard Methley producing and copying devotional works. It also held the only surviving manuscript of The Book of Margery Kempe, a 15th-century spiritual autobiography. The monks lived as hermits in individual cells, meeting only for liturgy and weekly walks, following strict Carthusian rules of silence and vegetarian diet. Archaeologists have reconstructed a monk’s cell, complete with a latrine and drainage ditches, showing the priory’s advanced sanitation. Today the ruins are cared for by the National Trust, set within a peaceful wooded landscape. Nearby stands Mount Grace House, a 17th-century manor later remodelled in Arts and Crafts style by Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell. The contrast between the medieval ruins and the later manor illustrates the site’s layered history. Visitors walk among the remains of cloisters and cells, imagining the silent lives of the Carthusian monks. The setting remains tranquil, far from modern roads, preserving the atmosphere of a remote hermitage.