Cookhill Priory was a Cistercian nunnery near

Cookhill Cookhill is a village and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, on the county border near Alcester. It is close to a former Cistercian Priory of the same name. History In the Domesday Book; Cookhill is mentioned as being in the Hundred o ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

History

The Priory is believed to be founded by Isabel de Mauduit, wife of

William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick (c. 1238 – 1298) was the eldest of eight children of William de Beauchamp of Elmley and his wife Isabel de Mauduit. He was an English nobleman and soldier, described as a “vigorous and innovative mili ...

in 1260, but it most likely dates to some years before then. It is on record that she was buried at Cookhill when she died, and that she had become a nun there by the time of his death in 1298. A tomb with a broken dedication was still present in the chapel in seventeenth century. The Priory was noted for its poverty and repeatedly exempted from taxation. Volume 2 of the ''History of the County of Worcester'' says:

The poverty of the house of Cookhill is indeed almost the chief feature of its known history. Almost every reference to the nuns is to speak of their poverty, to exempt them with other slenderly endowed houses from payment of any extraordinary taxation or to grant them respite for the arrears already owing to the king.

The numbers of nuns present was small, probably around seven, as at the time of dissolution. The Priory was dissolved in 1540, two or three years later than most, and the nuns given pensions. It is now a Grade II* listed building and occupied by a recording studio, VADA Studios. In February 2008, it was filmed for the 2008 British horror film '' The Children''.

Burials

*Isabel de Mauduit, wife of William (III) de Beauchamp

Tax dispute

The tax status of the property at its sale in 2001 after the death of Mrs Rosemary Antrobus made for two legal cases, known as ''Antrobus I'' and ''Antrobus II''. These have influenced the current understanding of the definition of farm properties for agricultural property relief.

HMRC HM Revenue and Customs (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs, or HMRC) is a non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial Departments of the United Kingdom Government, department of the His Majesty's Government, UK Government responsible fo ...

agreed that the property was a farmhouse, but that it was not entitled to be viewed as a solely agricultural building.

References

Sources

* * * Monasteries in Warwickshire Monasteries in Worcestershire Grade II* listed buildings in Worcestershire Cistercian nunneries in England 1260 establishments in England Christian monasteries established in the 13th century {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub