QR Code Heritage Research Project
Boxgrove Priory and Church
FREE to enter, and 5 minutes walk from the local Boxgrove village car park, Boxgrove Priory and Church offer beautiful detailed buildings and a thousand years of history.
With its romantic lodging house ruins this is the perfect place to wander around on a warm day, with interesting features including the remains of carved stone heads and gothic stone window arches.
After the Norman conquest of 1066 lands were given to Norman nobles and in 1108 land was given at Boxgrove to the Norman Abbey of Lessay to build a priory on the site of an original Saxon church.
When King Henry VIII came to the English throne in 1536, all catholic monasteries were dissolved and their contents removed, with the Church and high altar becoming the Parish Church seen today.
The Boxgrove church warden's accounts for 1611 mention that a little girl was hit on the head in the graveyard by a cricket ball, one of the earliest records of the game of cricket in England.
The graveyard also contains the body of Pilot Officer Billy Fisk, the first American killed in WWII.
The QR code research project at Boxgrove Priory and Church
Strategic points during your visit to the Priory will feature QR codes, on posts, on boards and walls. The plan is to site QR codes at key points of visitor interest, which may change from June to August.
QR codes are likely to be featured at many points around the ruined 14th century lodging house to the north and around the adjacent Priory church, including the Billy Fisk memorial.
About Boxgrove Priory
Boxgrove Priory - 1,000 years of history
Boxgrove Priory was founded in about 1108 by Robert de Haye, a Norman noble. The Domesday Book mentions that Boxgrove had the status of a parish and that a Saxon church existed before the Norman Conquest. All traces of this were obliterated by the Priory, linked to the great Benedictine Abbey of Bec.
By 1230 there were around 20 Benedictine monks living in the Priory, providing alms to visitors. The well preserved ruins of the 14th century lodging house still remain to the north. The priory is managed by English Heritage who maintain its current state of peaceful decay to ensure it can be enjoyed by future visitors.
Boxgrove Priory Church
The adjacent priory church dates from the early twelfth century, dedicated to St Mary and to St Blaise, and opens daily in daylight hours.
For 900 years Boxgrove villagers worshipped in this magnificent church and its glory is still much in evidence, despite losing its west end during the dissolution of the monasteries.
The church features a stained glass window near the altar of Billy Fiske, a WWII Hurricane US pilot killed during the Battle of Britain.
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