| Description | Site of former Medieval nunnery site now partly occupied by 'The Nunnery', Arthington [PRN 11412]. (This record should be considered with PRN 1417 relating to probable fishponds associated with the nunnery 300m to the east north east. APs show possible earthworks immediately north of the present building and ridge and furrow between those and the R. Wharfe). The priory of Arthington, the only house of Cluniac nuns in West Yorkshire, was founded by Peter de Arthington in the latter part of the reign of King Stephen or the beginning of the reign of Henry II (c. 1150 1160 AD). Throughout its existence the convent was small and poor, the nuns never being more than about ten in number. At the time of the dissolution there were nine nuns including the prioress Elizabeth Hall and the Priory was surrendered on 26 November 1540. The site of the monastery was granted by Henry VIII to Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1543 and the present house was built on the site in 1585.
Site is a candidate for scheduling (MPP). 1995 APs show the distribution of earthwork ridge and furrow well; also a broad rectilinear lush grass mark at SE 286 451, just west of the present building, which may be a candidate for further fishponds or similar.
The remains of Arthington Nunnery were recorded by the English Heritage National Mapping Project (NMP) in 2003 as being showing as both earthworks and cropmarks on aerial photographs. The features they record include Medieval fishponds, field boundaries, trackways, banks, mounds, sections of ditch, two leats, and several field of Medieval ridge and furrow. The main features are the three large fishponds; the easterly one is quite amorphous and defined by geography which has been only slightly altered to hold water. It is 230m long. A leat runs from this pond into the River Wharfe. The remaining two fishponds are similar in shape. They both display shallow channels surrounding a platform. This central feature may have been used for fish breeding in shallow water (Van Den Toorn, 2003).
In July 1981 Alastair Laurence visited the site and noted 'traces of underground foundations in the present orchard as well as the stackgarth walled enclosure'. He also noted:
1) Most of the existing well built boundary walls have been built from re used stone, rather than being derived from parts of former building walls. However, there is one exception, that being the eastern wall of the stack garth, the lower courses of which coudl have been a building wall at some time.
2) The original road to the south of the Nunnery ran from the Nun Well, across the bottom of the orchard, through what is now the bottom of the garden, and so on. At some point the road was moved further south, to its present location.
3) There were no buidlings in the vicinity of Nun Well, as most of the field has be ploughed since the Middle Ages. There was a boundary wall or hedge of some kind halfway across the present field to the east of the orchard.
A site visit by Steve Moorhouse and Peter Thornborrow (WYAS) in early 1988 suggests earthworks (some of which underlie the ridge and furrow) to NW, N, NE and E of present house. Although no detailed site notes can be found on file in the HER, a drawn sketch plan of the site along with photographs of the farm complex, and grounds around Nuns' Well are on file. [Further, there are three photographs taken showing exposed footings of former buildings possibly relating to the small excavation mentioned below by Peter Ryder when he also visited the site later in 1988 the person/s who undertook this excavation however are unrecorded]. |