English Heritage sites near Thurgarton Parish
RUFFORD ABBEY
9 miles from Thurgarton Parish
The best-preserved remains of a Cistercian abbey west cloister range in England, dating mainly from about 1170. Incorporated into part of a 17th century and later mansion, set in Rufford Country Park.
HARDWICK OLD HALL
16 miles from Thurgarton Parish
The remodelled family home of Bess of Hardwick, one of the richest and most remarkable women of Elizabethan England, stands beside the New Hall she raised later in the 1590s.
BOLSOVER CASTLE
18 miles from Thurgarton Parish
'By an unlikely miracle, the keep at Bolsover has survived into this century as an almost untouched expression in stone of the lost world of Elizabethan chivalry and romance.'
BOLSOVER CUNDY HOUSE
19 miles from Thurgarton Parish
This charming cottage-like 17th-century conduit house, with vaulted stone-slab roof, once supplied water to Bolsover Castle.
SUTTON SCARSDALE HALL
19 miles from Thurgarton Parish
The imposing shell of a grandiose Georgian mansion built in 1724-29, with an immensely columned exterior. Roofless since 1919, when its interiors were dismantled and some exported to America.
WINGFIELD MANOR
19 miles from Thurgarton Parish
The vast and immensely impressive ruins of a palatial medieval manor house, with a huge undercrofted Great Hall and a defensible High Tower 22 metres (72 feet) tall.
Churches in Thurgarton Parish
St Peter
Priory Road
Thurgarton
Nottingham
07720010066
https://www.beneficeofwesttrent.org
The Domesday entry for Thurgarton and Tythby records a priest and a church; evidence of a late Anglo-Saxon / early Norman church site was discovered in the 1950s during archaeological excavations on Castle Hill, 250m south of the present parish church.
After 1066 Thurgarton passed to the Dayncourt family and in the 1130s Ralph Dayncourt founded the Augustinian Priory of St Peter. The early 13th century priory church built in the Early English Gothic style was said to have rivalled Southwell Minster in size and grandeur. Further work in the 14th century has left some beautiful examples of Decorated style carving.
Thurgarton Priory accrued considerable wealth in the following centuries but was blighted by financial mismanagement and scandal; its reputation however was restored in the late 14th century by Walter Hilton, one of the great medieval spiritual teachers of England.
The priory was surrendered to Henry VIII's commissioners in 1538. The advowson and tithes were granted to Trinity College, Cambridge but the priory buildings and surrounding land were sold to William Cooper. The Coopers dismantled most of the church and claustral buildings to build a Tudor mansion.
The priory church continued as the parish church but as a much smaller building which retained only the north-west tower and the west end of the nave with a lowered roof.
In 1777 the Tudor house was replaced by the brick Georgian mansion one can see today. In 1820 the Milward family bought the Cooper estate and in 1853 Richard Milward commissioned the Nottingham architect, T C Hine, to restore the dilapidated church. The present church is essentially Hine's work together with surviving fabric from the 13th and 14th century building and retains its ancient title of The Priory Church of St Peter.
Pubs in Thurgarton Parish
Coach & Horses
Fairly large, welcoming pub located in the centre of the village on the Southwell to Nottingham Road. Large car park and outside beer garden. Three ever-changing guest beers from the Heineken list, often from Caledonian.
Red Lion
Southwell Road, Thurgarton, NG14 7GP
(01636) 830772
redlionthurgarton.co.uk