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Surprisingly little history is known about this North Yorkshire priory, whose fragmented ruins have been allowed to rest peacefully beside the River Derwent. It was sometime during the 1120s that Walter l'Espec founded Kirkham Priory with a community of Augustinian canons. As Lord of Helmsley he later established two houses of the Cistercian Order, the great Rievaulx Abbey close to his estate, and a smaller abbey in Bedfordshire. But, legend has it, that Kirkham was founded in memory of l'Espec's only son who had died close to this site after a fall from his horse. |
