Haverholme

No individual entry for Haverholme found in the Domesday survey. The entry for this priory in the Victoria County History (Lincoln, vol. 2, 1906) notes: "The Gilbertine priory of St. Mary, Haverholme, was founded as a double house in 1139 by Alexander, bishop of Lincoln. [...] In 1137 he had offered the site, a marshy island in the river near Sleaford, to the abbot of Fountains for a Cistercian abbey. [...] Abbot Gervase accepted it; two years were spent in erecting those monastic buildings which were absolutely needful, and on Candlemas Day, 1139, a band of monks was sent from Fountains to take possession. [...] The place displeased them, and the bishop gave them instead the site on which the house of Louth Park was built. Alexander then offered Haverholme to his former confessor, Gilbert of Sempringham [...] The later history of the priory is quite obscure. Shortly before the dissolution there were many manuscripts but few printed books. [...] The house was surrendered on 24 September, 1538, by the prior and six canons."