Binham Priory

About four miles north-east of Walsingham is the village of Binham.  Here in about 1091 a Benedictine Priory was founded by Peter de Valoines, (thought to have been a nephew of William the Conqueror), confirmed by a charter of Henry I in about 1104.

It was subordinate to, or a cell of, the Abbey of St. Albans, and not fewer than eight monks from St. Albans were to be maintained at Binham.  

The building materials are of flint and Barnack stone from Northamptonshire. On the suppression of the monasteries in 1536 the Church was not destroyed. What was the nave of the priory church is the present Parish Church (The Priory Church of St. Mary and the Holy Cross).

The Church has excellent acoustics, and concerts are held there during the summer.  The  ruins of the former monastic buildings on the south and east of the Church are owned by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust, and English Heritage exercises a guardianship role.
There is an important project in progress to maintain, interpret – and make increasingly accessible to visitors -  the whole of the former monastic site.