Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/30



St. Leonard's Priory, Stamford.

St. Leonard's Priory is the oldest building in the neighbourhood. After Oswy, King of Northumbria, had defeated Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, he gave the government of this part of the conquered province to Penda's son Pæda, and gave land in Stamford to his son's tutor, Wilfrid, and here, in 658, Wilfrid built the priory of St. Leonard which he bestowed on his monastery at Lindisfarne, and when the monks removed thence to Durham it became a cell of the priory of Durham. Doubtless the building was destroyed by the Danes, but it was refounded