An Appeal for the Church and Buildings of Kingsmead Priory, circa 1218

The small priory of the nuns of Kingsmead was situated on the west of the medieval town of Derby in the meadows by the Odde brook; nothing now remains above ground, but Nuns' Hill and Nun Street keep the site in memory. The foundation recalls the origin of the Order of Sempringham and the story of the seven maidens for whom St. Gilbert built a habitation. In 1160 the abbot of the Augustinian canons of Darley Abbey built a habitation for maidens a mile away on land belonging to his house, and the bishop of Coventry and Lichfield with Chester gave the abbot permission to consecrate the maidens, and put them under his charge. At Kingsmead, as in a number of small nunneries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a prior or master served the nuns as chaplain and managed their property. The nuns subsequently struggled for independence, and about 1250 the bishop released them and their property from the jurisdiction and control of the abbot and canons of Darley. A document among the Wollaston charters in the British Museum, which has hitherto not been noticed, records the effort of the prior and the nuns to raise money for the repair of their church and the buildings of the priory. Collectors were sent out with the appeal, and it was usual to read such appeals as these in parish churches after the gospel at high mass on Sundays and holy days. The appeal had been carefully prepared.