Mount Grace Priory

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Mount Grace Priory

Mount Grace Priory is the best preserved and most accessible of the ten Carthusian charterhouses in England. Founded in 1398, it was the last monastery established in Yorkshire before the Reformation, and an expression of the fashion for piety and strict living of the time. Unlike other monks, who lived in common, the Carthusians lived as hermits, each occupying his own cell (more like a small house), and coming together rarely in the chapel for certain prayers.

The priory was closed in 1539 during the dissolution of the monasteries (by Henry VIII of England). The ruins of its guest-house were incorporated into two later houses: a seventeenth-century manor - a rare building of the Commonwealth period - and the larger house of the 1900-01, an important example of the Arts and Crafts movement. The property is now under the care of English Heritage.

Visitors today can see the layout of the whole monastery, including one reconstructed monk's cell, together with the typically small Carthusian chapel and the later house. There is also a museum on the site detailing the history of the priory.

English Heritage plan to open a holiday cottage on the site in 2007.