Meeting Reflections

Chicksands Priory, by Damien O’Dell

Our September meeting was a talk on the History of Chicksands Priory, given by Damien O’Dell. He fell in love with the Priory on his first visit and has researched the subject over the years. He has just published a book on the Priory.

Damien explained that the story falls into three parts: firstly, the monastic, secondly when it belonged to the Osborne family and lastly as an RAF base.

In 1152, Payn de Beauchamps, Baron of Bedford, gave the land comprising the Priory to the Church to save his soul from damnation. Gilbert of Sempringham founded the Priory and it became home to the Gilbertine order of monks and nuns. It was the only truly English order and the Priory is the only one of the ten priories set up by Gilbert that still exists. Gilbert, contrary to most of the population at the time, apparently lived to 106 – a good man?

The Priory flourished until the Dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, when the Prior was given the choice of leaving or being put in the gibbet. Not surprisingly, he left. The Priory was first owned by the Snowe family and then in 1576, it became the home of the Osborne family.

There was a widely held belief that families who acquired monastic land were cursed and this certainly seems to be the case with the Osbornes. Dorothy Osborne, now acclaimed as a noted letter writer about her period, had to wait several years to marry her sweetheart and then 8 of her 9 children died at birth or in infancy. The ninth drowned himself after displeasing the King. Another Osborne, having lost his wife in childbirth, was appointed Governor of New York and committed suicide after just 8 days.

General George Osborne, however, changed things and is responsible for the Chicksands of today. He spent his money on improving the building and the gardens and amassed a large collection of valuables. We have him to thank for the Chicksands Priory we see today.

After WWI, the family could not afford the running of the Priory and it was sold to the Crown and then for a short period to the Royal Navy. After them, came the RAF and Chicksands was developed as a radio station. It had a pivotal role during WWII as a listening station; the personnel worked closely Bletchley Park. Chicksands also sent coded messages to SOE agents and was instrumental in discovering the position of the battleship Bismarck during the battle of the Denmark Strait.

In 1950 the USAF leased Chicksands and stayed there until 1995, continuing to listen to messages from the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Now back in the hands of the RAF, the station will finally be decommissioned in 2030.

Damien finished with various tales of the ghosts haunting Chicksands. These have been sighted by several people over the years, but, as he said, it’s up to us to decide whether the stories are true.

It was certainly an entertaining and enjoyable evening and he left us with the ‘carrot’ of visiting the Priory to learn more.

Sue Harland