Qualla: Burscough Priory

Burscough Priory: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PC78, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two piers. That is all that stands above ground. They rise out of a quiet field at Burscough in Lancashire, the surviving stubs of the crossing tower of an Augustinian priory church that once contained eight bells, a cruciform plan a hundred feet long, and the tombs of one of the most powerful noble families in late-medieval England. The piers support nothing now except the sky. They are the last vertical evidence that a place worth burying earls in once stood here.

Read more: Burscough Priory on Qualla

Image: PC78 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Burscough Priory: Founded by a Lord, Endowed Generously

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PC78, CC BY-SA 4.0. Robert Fitz-Henry, Lord of Lathom, founded the priory around 1190 for a community of Augustinian canons. He gave it land in Burscough, the entire neighbouring township of Marton, the chapel of St Leonard of Knowsley, all the mills on his demesne, and the patronage of three parish...

Read more: Burscough Priory on Qualla

Image: PC78 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Burscough Priory: The Stanleys, Buried Here

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Hamnett, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1390 the lordship of Lathom and its associated lands passed by marriage to the Stanley family. The Stanleys would, in the next century, become one of the most consequential noble houses in England. Several were buried in Burscough Priory. Thomas Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley, KG,...

Read more: Burscough Priory on Qualla

Image: Dave Hamnett | CC BY-SA 2.0

Burscough Priory: Eight Bells and a Tudor Visit

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PC78, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Henry VIII dissolved the priory around 1536, eight bells from its church were carried to Ormskirk Parish Church. The Ormskirk steeple could not bear the weight, so a tower had to be built specifically to house them. The remaining bells went to Croston church. The tenor bell ...

Read more: Burscough Priory on Qualla

Image: PC78 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Burscough Priory: What an 1886 Survey Recorded

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PC78, CC BY-SA 4.0. We know what the church looked like only because someone made a careful survey of the ruins in 1886. The plan was cruciform: a chancel 42 by 24 feet, a central tower 22 feet square, north and south transepts, and a nave 100 feet by 24 feet with a north aisle. On the south side of...

Read more: Burscough Priory on Qualla

Image: PC78 | CC BY-SA 4.0