Rusper Priory

William de Braose was the patron when the foundation was confirmed c.1200 by Seffrid II, Bishop of Chichester. The priory was probably for twelve nuns under a prioress. The priory received income from the churches of Warnham, Ifield, and Selham, to which John de Braose added that of Horsham in or before 1231.[1][2]

The total income in 1291 was over £44. After the Black Death the priory declined. There were eight nuns in 1442, but only five in 1478. There were four nuns in 1521 and three in 1527.[3][4] In 1535, the annual value of the priory was estimated by the Valor Ecclesiasticus at £39.

It was dissolved in 1537. At that time there were only one nun and the prioress, both very aged. They had two women servants.[5][6]

The last prioress, Elizabeth Sydney, received a pension of 100s, and the one remaining sister a gift of 60s. (They were two of the three nuns who had professed on 8 August, 1484.)[7] The reversion of the priory's demesne estate was granted to Sir Robert Southwell and his wife Margaret. The medieval priory buildings were replaced by a building called The Nunnery, which was much altered in later centuries.[8]

The present house occupying the site, although still called The Nunnery, was built in the nineteenth century.[9]

• A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 2, The Victoria County History, 1973
• A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6, Part 3, The Victoria County History, 1987
• The Buildings of England: Sussex, Ian Nairn and Nikolaus Pevsner, Penguin, 1965
• Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales, David Knowles and R. Neville Hadcock, Longman, 1971