Delapré was ruled by an abbess but was never a large or particularly rich community and relatively little is known of the life of the nuns at Delapré between about 1200 and the dissolution of the nunnery in 1538, besides documentary entries relating to the appointment of superiors or inspection visits by the Bishop of Lincoln. It is likely that the nuns came from local aristocratic families, wore black habits and for the first two centuries, like others of their class, spoke French. In the 13th and 14th centuries there were probably about 20 nuns. At the time of a bishop’s visitation in 1530 only 11 members are recorded and by the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538, only nine nuns and the abbess remained.
Life in the nunnery centred around the recitation of daily offices commencing at 2 am with matins and the receiving of beggars, travellers and the abbess’ visitors. Other events included the celebration of the great festivals of the Church and periodical visitations from the Bishop of Lincoln. Cluniac monks and nuns followed the Benedictine rule but focussed more on ceremony, rich vestments, lavish architecture and sumptuous decoration and there would have been lay workers to undertake domestic work.
Foundation of Cluniac nunnery & medieval Delapre (1145 – 1538)
The Cluniac nunnery of St Mary of De La Pre ( St Mary of the meadow) was founded here by the second Simon de St Liz or Senlis, Earl of Northampton in around 1145 A.D. The first Earl Simon had built Northampton Castle and founded the priory of St Andrew at the north end of the town whose endowment included demesnes (land) in Hardingstone Parish, south of the River Nene. At the second Earl’s request and in return for a yearly rent of 60 shillings, the monks of St Andrew’s gave back part of this land for a site for the establishment of the nunnery. Like the Priory of St Andrew, the nunnery of St Mary was of the Cluniac order.
The Cluniac Order was ruled directly from the great Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, and was a branch of the Benedictines. The Benedictine Order was a considerable focus of monastic reform in the 10th and11th centuries, and had great appeal to the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, including the Earls of Northampton. Only one other Cluniac house of nuns was founded in England; at Arthington, in Yorkshire. Earl Simon endowed the new nunnery with lands in Hardingstone and elsewhere for their maintenance, and gave them the income from the churches of Earls Barton, Great Doddington and Fotheringay together with an annual tun of wine to celebrate Mass at Pentecost. The nuns also had the right to collect a cartload of firewood daily in Yardley Chase. According to historical records, the Delapré nuns were first established for a few years at Fotheringhay before moving to the site at Delapre.
There is virtually no surviving evidence of the medieval nunnery still visible today and so there is much conjecture as to what and where the buildings were located. Nunneries and monasteries were usually designed and constructed to a more or less standard form, and the best evidence for what may have been here is the plan form of the Abbey now, with at least three sides around a central courtyard or cloister. The north and east ranges are the oldest surviving parts of the Abbey and possibly on the site of the church and choir.
There is little evidence above ground of the medieval nunnery – some walls in the basement may be of medieval construction, but the only real evidence from this period are the lantern holders within the north-west and north-east corners of the cloister - which may have been re-set from earlier construction. Confirmation of the original extent of the church and nunnery can really only be made by below-ground archaeology and research.
Two events of national importance touched the lives of the nuns of Delapré. The first occurred in 1290 when the funeral cortège of Eleanor of Castile, Queen of Edward I halted at Delapré overnight en route from Harby in Nottinghamshire to Westminster. An Eleanor Cross was erected in 1291-3, outside the abbey on the London Road marking the halting place and is one of only three crosses still surviving out of the original 12 which marked this event.
The second national event which occurred near Delapré Abbey was the Battle of Northampton, on the 10th July 1460, which was one of the battles between the Lancastrians and Yorkists, which later became known as the Wars of the Roses. The battle was fought somewhere between the River Nene and Hardingstone; eye witness accounts tell us that it was watched from Queen Eleanor’s cross so it is likely that the main part of the battle took place somewhere in the vicinity of the golf course. The Lancastrians were heavily defeated and King Henry VI taken prisoner and held in the nunnery overnight before travelling back to London.
In 1536 Delapre’s period as a nunnery began to draw to a close. King Henry VIII (he of the six wives fame) instigated the creation of the England’s separation from the Catholic Church; one result of which was the suppression or closure of monasteries and convents. The last abbess at Delapré, Clementina Stock, managed to put off Delapre’s closure by paying the crown the enormous sum of £266 along with land and rent in order to obtain a re-grant for the Abbey in 1536. This was only a postponement of the inevitable however and two years later she was forced to agree to a deed of surrender and the abbey was finally dissolved on 16th December 1538. A pyx and two chalices were taken to London and presumably the furniture and household goods were sold by the King’s men. The abbess and the nuns received pensions and were forced into a secular life with friends and relations. The lead from the buildings and the three convent bells were sold and in 1543, after having been let as agricultural land for a time, Delapré and its demesne lands were granted to John Mershe, a land speculator of London, in exchange for other property, before being sold to the Tate family in c. 1546.