A Lost Medieval Priory Beneath a Grand Country House, Conishead Priory

Conishead Priory today is a well visited attraction, home to Buddhist monks and an impressive and “…very important Gothic revival country house with few peers in the north west” (English Heritage). But beneath the grand manor house and its well kept lawns are the foundations of a 12th Century Augustinian Priory.

In 1160 Gamel de Pennington, a local lord living at Pennington Castle, founded a hospital here for the poor of the Ulverston area. Monks from the Order of St. Augustine ran the hospital and lived within it. They also founded a school here to help educated local children. Later, in 1188, the hospital was raised to the status of a Priory and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. A holy relic kept at the site was said to be a girdle, a type of waist tie, of Mary.

The newly appointed priory soon was given new land and rights which, in turn, brought conflict with the nearby Furness Abbey. Furness was an ever growing power house at the time and would be unhappy with a new priory taking land and tithes from areas they could potentially cultivate. Disputes between Conishead and Furness carried on until 1338 when Edward II gave a royal charter to Conishead, which confirmed all earlier grants of land and rights. This brought to an end all disputes, although one does wonder if the monks at Furness were ever completely happy with the Priories existence!

In the mid 1500’s, as part of the ‘Act for the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries’, Conishead was dissolved. The monks were moved on and the lead from the roofs stripped, melted down and sold. The walls were dismantled as well leaving the site all but empty.

If you visit the site today it is hard to see any evidence of this early priory. No ruined walls are left to give an idea of its size or shape, nor any markings on the ground. But, thankfully, there has been some archaeological excavation at the site. This work found the priory church to be beneath the south lawn of the current manor house and to be in the typical cruciform shape with a 100 foot nave and crossing transepts. The domestic buildings of the priory are believed to be beneath the current manor house, inaccessible for research and confirmation of size and shape.

It is a shame that this religious house of old is no longer in existence or that there is no evidence of it left to see. It must have been a peaceful and beautiful place in it’s time and would have been a wonderful place to visit today if still in some form of existence.

After the priories dissolution the estate was given to a man called Lord Mounteagle who built a country house here from what was left of the Priories stone walls. The estate then went on to pass through various hands until eventually coming into the hands of the Braddylls family. They held Conishead for just under two centuries, living in the country house. In 1821 the house was to undergo a drastic change, a change brought about by Colonel Thomas Braddyll - High Sheriff of Lancashire.

The Colonel hired architect Philip Wyatt to rebuild Conishead to a brand new design. From here the current house was demolished and fifteen years later the brand new Conishead manor house was finished and was, and is, stunning. Wyatt had blended different architectural styles to produce a unique and exciting building. The houses distinctive octagonal towers, which stand at the front of the building, are truly impressive at 100 feet tall and make Conishead stand out amongst the surrounding trees and, indeed, amongst other local stately homes and country houses.

Unfortunately for Colonel Braddyll he was, in 1848, declared bankrupt and he lost his newly built Conishead. The site once again passed through various hands until eventually becoming a hydropathical hotel, soon being known as ‘The Paradise of Furness’. The hotel could hold 240 guests and provided a host of different facilities including a huge library, tennis courts, pleasure boating and salt baths.

Fifty years later and the house changed hands again, this time bought by the Durham Miners Welfare Committee. They turned the site into a convalescent home for Durham coal miners who became ill from there work. During the Second World War the site became a military hospital, the largest in the North, and looked after many thousands of patients over the war years.

Today Buddhist monks own and look after the house, which has become the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre. The former walled garden of the country house now holds a beautifully decorative Buddhist temple and the site is a hub for spiritual activity in the area.

Visiting the site today you can get a sense of the tranquillity that the original Augustinian monks would have had being here and that the many families, hotel guests, miners and Buddhists have experienced here over the centuries. The site is well worth a visit for a cup of tea and a slice of cake in the café, a wander around the impressive garden and grounds and a look inside the temple. But while there be sure to take a look at the grand stately home and think of the humble beginning of the site as a medieval hospital turned priory.

A Lost Industrial Site and Stately Home, Claye's Wagon Works and Infield House

Extending off of Salthouse Road, Barrow, next to Vulcan Road is a small industrial site including a car garage. The site is not the most attractive looking place and many wouldn't give it a second glance but this site has a hidden past that many may not know!

During the 1800's Barrow saw a boom in industry taking the town from a small fishing village to a large and at times crowded town. One industry that sprang up in the town during this period was S.J.Claye's Wagon Works. The Works was set up to build railway wagons for the ever growing Furness Railway and it is where the small industrial site and garage now lie that the Wagon Works were built.

A man named Samuel John Claye, who already had a successful wagon works at Long Eaton in the Derbyshire came to the town and saw need for a works. He bought land on Salthouse Road and soon built the Wagon Works. The building was a large construction some 300+ feet long and 170 feet wide. In fact part of the building we believe still stands today and is currently occupied by the garage we spoke of earlier. The garage is in a small building which looks to have once been part of a larger one. The two triangle sectioned roof is typical of Victorian industrial buildings and matches the style of roof the Wagon Works once had. The Works had a large main building split into three sections; the wagon shop, the paint shop and the saw mill. At the end of the main building was a smaller attached section holding two rooms; the Engine Room and Boiler Room. It is in these two rooms where the garage is situated today. You can see a plan of the building at the foot of this section as well as a map from 1873 which has the Wagon Works marked on it so you can see it's shape and positioning. Unfortunately the remains of the Wagon Works, now occupied by the garage, have been covered in a pebbledash render. This has covered up the typical red brick construction of Victorian Barrow but you can still find evidence of it where the render has come away.

The Wagon Works continued to make wagons for the railway and iron industry for several years after it's construction employing many skilled workmen from the town. Two of it's workmen were part of controversy in 1875 when they took part in a prize fight! The two men, Ennis and Hockney, had a dispute over something and decided to have a prize fight to settle the matter. A prize fight being a bare knuckle fight where bets are placed on the out come. The fight took place on a plot of land called Kendall's Garden some 100 feet from the Wagon Works. The men fought for 2 hours, taking breaks occasionally, and up to 200 spectators gathered over its course. The fight reached its end with Ennis dealing a fatal amount of blows, which resulted in Hockney's untimely death. Ennis was later arrested and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment at Lancaster. It is perhaps ironic that not long after Ennis was released from prison he himself died taking part in a similar fight!

At sometime Mr. Claye decided to build himself a home in the ever expanding town. He did this on the then outskirts of Barrow, just off of Abbey Road. The house, well, the mansion, he built was named Infield and stood some way back from the road surrounded by land. It is unclear how long Mr. Claye lived here for but by 1882 he had gone into liquidation and left the town to live out the rest of his life in Long Eaton. He died on 3rd April 1887 from a short illness aged 68.

After his death both Infield and the Wagon Works were sold off. The Wagon Works eventually went to the Vulcan Steel and Forge that stood next to the works. Infield however went on to become a War Memorial and Convalescent home after World War 1, where people would stay to be treated for long term illness and/or injury. Eventually the home shut and fell into disrepair, after this the building was demolished and a housing estate was built in the 1960s on the land where it once stood. This estate still stands today and retains the name of the former mansion that stood there, Infield. The wall that stands at the front of the estate is the same wall that would have once surrounded the mansion, the original gate posts are still standing too. You can see these features and the estate just off of Abbey Road past the entrance to Chetwynde School.

While in Barrow Mr. Claye took to local politics and stood for election in the Yarlside Ward of the Municipal Council for many years until 1877. Also in 1875 he applied for a license to sell alcohol in a house he intended to build on the corner of Foundry Street and Salthouse road, just across the road from his Wagon Works. Although after a dispute he withdrew his application. Eventually a pub was built where Mr. Claye had originally intended but it wasn't by him, the pub still stands today, if closed, as the Rifleman's Arms.

Although not much remains of the Wagon Works or Infield house it is wonderful to know that these buildings once existed in Barrow. It is a shame that Infield is no longer standing as it was surely an impressive sight to behold. The Wagon Works must also have been rather impressive but as many of our industrial buildings it was lost to demolition and 'progress'. 

The next blog will be online from February 18th and will be the next in our Victorian Emergency Services Series, this time looking at Dalton-in-Furness. So be sure to check back then, in the meantime we hope you have enjoyed this post!

Left: Sketch of Infield House.      Right: Photo of inside Infield when it was a convalescent home.

 Left: The Site of Infield House Today.      Right: The Site of Claye's Wagon Works Today.

Model of an S.J.Claye Wagon. This one from his Long Eaton Works.