Chicksands
Chicksands Priory
Places > Chicksands > Historic Buildings
Spy base houses years of intrigue,
scandal and woe
22nd October 2000
Bedfordshire on Sunday
THE officers' mess of the most secretive location in Bedfordshire was once home to pregnant nuns, a cursed family of baronets and spies and offered sanctuary to a murdered archbishop.
Chicksands Priory was first mentioned in the Domesday Book survey of 1086, before becoming home to a religious order in 1147.
The Gilbertine Order was the only order of purely English foundation.
It was at the Priory that the Archbishop Thomas a Becket found refuge while fleeing to France to avoid the wrath of former friend King Henry II.
Thomas's friendship with the King had moved him swiftly up the ranks of the Catholic church and his allegiance changed from the court to the church accordingly.
In those days the Church reserved the right to try clerics accused of crimes, and Henry wanted to extend his control over religious matters by destroying this.
Sensing danger after refusing to recognise the new laws and refusing to meet the King at court, Thomas decided to flee to France.
He first sought refuge at Chicksands Priory to hide from the furious King before his long journey.
The comfort and kindness he received at the Priory may have been the last he was to see for quite some time. He didn't return to England for six years and when he did he was dead within months.
He was murdered at his own altar in Canterbury Cathedral by knights of the King, and was later canonised in 1173.
Life continued normally at Chicksands until 1531, when Henry VIII proclaimed himself the head of the church in England so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon, who was then living in nearby Ampthill.
This meant that all religious houses were dissolved and their land was given to the Crown.
The King's lawyer, Dr Richard Layton, produced a report for Henry stating how the vows of the nuns and monks were being broken at Chicksands.
Chastity vows were definitely being broken, as two of the nuns at Chicksands were found to be pregnant. At least one of the nuns was punished by being bricked up alive in one of the walls.
The ghost of the girl, known as Rosetta, has been seen by many officers and civilians staying at RAF Chicksands, always on the 17th of the month.
She is said to be eternally searching for the body of her lover, who was beheaded.
A deed of surrender was signed by the Priory, and Chicksands became Crown property .The Crown swiftly sold the land to Richard Snowe whose son Daniel bequeathed it to Mary Osbourne.
The Osbourne family may well have rued the day the will was written, as each member was touched by tragedy. .
The land eventually came into the possession of Sir Peter Osbourne in 1598, whose family would remain at Chicksands until 1936.
Sir Peter was a staunch Cavalier during the Civil War and moved to Guernsey where he became Royal Governor. But he lost much of his fortune when it was diverted by a so-called friend to Jersey rather than to Sir Peter. He and his wife were hit by more personal tragedy when only five of their eight children survived infancy and his daughter Dorothy fell madly in love with William Temple - the son of a prominent Roundhead. The couple met with disapproval and were split up.
Sir Peter returned to Chicksands after the King was beheaded until his eventual death in 1653.
While Sir Peter was lying on his death bed, Dorothy had renewed her relationship with William via secret letters, despite their family's political differences. The pair were married in 1654.
While Dorothy's elder brother John inherited the Priory, she did not fare so well. Seven of her nine children died in childhood, a son committing suicide at the age of 21. Dorothy died in 1695, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The family curse continued. Sir Danvers Osbourne became Governor of New York in America in 1753 but hanged himself in a fit of depression after a hostile reception.
The 6th baronet, Sir George Robert built the three Chicksands lodges, and his initials 'GRO' can still be seen on the walls. However, he lost his son Henry in the 1889 steamer disaster when the 'Comtesse de Flandres' and the 'Princess Henriette' collided.
A monument commemorating the accident can still be found in the south-east of Chicksands Wood. His grandson Algernon survived the tragedy and became the 7th baronet.
I n 1936, the Priory was sold by Sir Algernon to the Crown and was developed into a secret service station.
Chicksands played a huge part in the Second World War by receiving signals which were later decoded at Bletchley Park, where the German Enigma code was broken.
The breaking of the code is often said to have taken two years off the duration of the war.
Since the war, Chicksands was firstly an American airbase, and more recently a top secret intelligence base for the British military.
For a house whose walls have witnessed tragedy and scandal, it seems fitting that it currently sits in the hands of one of the most secretive organisations in the world, involved in top secret training and research.
If those walls could talk, they would have an awful lot to say
Page last updated: 19th May 2014