Priory, path and pub
Thurgarton
A Nottinghamshire village where a medieval priory church, a community-owned inn and the Walter Hilton Way shape the visit.
- Best for
- Priory architecture and a ridge walk to Southwell
- Give it
- A half day, or longer with Southwell
- Don't miss
- The church's 13th-century dogtooth west door
The Fox verdict
A small village with an unusually deep story
Thurgarton pairs a surviving Augustinian priory front with a community-owned gastropub and a named walk to Southwell.
Start with the six-stage tower and carved west doorway of the Priory Church of St Peter, then choose between the Walter Hilton Way over the ridge and the Red Lion's modern British food. Thurgarton has its own railway station on the Nottingham–Lincoln line, while Southwell Minster and The Workhouse add two nearby history stops.
Where to go
Places in Thurgarton
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThurgarton Railway Station
Thurgarton's Grade II listed station opened in 1846 on the Nottingham–Lincoln line engineered by George Stephenson.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 20 minutes
- Locality
- Thurgarton
Southwell Minster
A medieval cathedral in Southwell, famed for the carved Leaves of Southwell in its Chapter House.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Southwell
The Workhouse
A National Trust museum in Southwell, built in 1824 as a prototype 19th-century workhouse.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Southwell
Food & drink
1 placeThe Red Lion
A community-owned country inn with two AA Rosettes, modern British cooking, traditional pub classics and ingredients sourced within a 30-mile radius.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Southwell Road, Thurgarton
Walks & outdoors
1 placeWalter Hilton Way
A named route linking Thurgarton Priory to Southwell Minster by footpaths and quiet country lanes, crossing the ridge and grassy and arable fields.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Thurgarton Priory to Southwell Minster
History & heritage
1 placePriory Church of St Peter
The parish church preserves the six-stage 13th-century west tower and dogtooth-carved pointed west doorway of the former Augustinian priory.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Thurgarton
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Three ways to explore Thurgarton
Signature outings
The community-owned Red Lion
Settle in for modern British cooking or pub classics at the village's surviving inn, reopened after the community bought it in 2019.
The priory's surviving west front
Look closely at the six-stage tower and the pointed 13th-century west doorway with its bands of dogtooth carving.
Thurgarton's listed station
Use the village's own Grade II listed station on the Nottingham–Lincoln line, opened in 1846.
The village story
Thurgarton Village Guide
A community pub, a monumental priory survival and the long afterlife of Walter Hilton in one compact Nottinghamshire story.
The Village's Last Inn
The Red Lion on Southwell Road is not just the best pub in Thurgarton. It is more or less the only business left, now that Priory Stores, the 1960s post office, has become a beauty salon.
That would matter less if the Red Lion weren't good at its job. It holds two AA Rosettes and sources meat from James Vickers, fish from Paulo's Seafoods, and the rest from All Shires Foods and Fruit Basket, all within thirty miles. Steak Night is Thursday, chippy tea is Friday, and Sunday lunch is served in a dining room called the Clarke Restaurant. TripAdvisor reviewers describe "excellent, well-prepared food and exceptional waitress service."
A Community Pub and Priory
An ale house has stood on the site since the 16th century, and the current one nearly didn't survive its own. It closed for two years before the village bought it in 2019 and started running it themselves, having had it registered as an Asset of Community Value three years earlier. Sit at one of sixteen covers out front, or a picnic table among the five round the back, with a pint of Castle Rock Harvest Pale or Draught Bass and a dog under the table — the pub takes them on leads, usually somewhere quieter.
Behind the pub, and behind most of the village, is the priory. Founded around 1119 by Ralph de Aincourt for Augustinian canons, it rivalled Southwell Minster in scale until the Dissolution in 1534, after which most of the buildings were pulled down for stone. What survived — the six-stage west tower and a fragment of nave — was absorbed into the parish church, the Priory Church of St Peter, and the join is where you'd expect it: the west door, dogtooth-carved and pointed, is 13th century and usually singled out as one of the finest of its kind in England.
Walter Hilton and Domesday Thurgarton
One of the canons who lived here, Walter Hilton, wrote The Scale of Perfection at Thurgarton in the late 1380s, still working on the second book when he died in 1396. It became one of the standard texts of English mysticism, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1494 at the request of Lady Margaret Beaufort. A walking route named after him, the Walter Hilton Way, follows footpaths and lanes from the priory to Southwell Minster, about three miles over the ridge. Trains from Thurgarton's own Grade II listed station take about fifteen minutes into Nottingham.
Domesday valued the whole manor at £3 in 1066, rising to £4 by 1086, worked by twelve villagers, ten freemen, two smallholders and a priest — roughly the population of Thurgarton then, and not far off the number it would take to fill the Red Lion's beer garden now.
Civil War and Village Life
The Civil War treated the place less gently. Sir Roger Cooper fortified the Tudor priory house and lined its hedges with musketeers as one of the garrisons ringing Newark; Parliament took the house anyway. The historian Robert Thoroton later summed him up as "a worthy honest gentleman whose fidelity and constancy to the royal interest weakened his fortunes," which is one way of putting it.
Fisk and Thurgarton Cricket Club still plays most weekends, and the Village Hall doubles as the parish council chamber on the fourth Thursday of the month. The playground the parish council has been raising money for is still short of its target, but the hardwood equipment has already been chosen, waiting for its green.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Nottinghamshire, linked directly to their property pages.
Nottingham
Camila's Penthouse Central Stay with Balcony
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Anna's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Blair's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
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Melissa's Central Stay
- Sleeps 13
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Stephanie's Central Stay
- Sleeps 6
- 2 bedrooms
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Red Lion — redlionthurgarton.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Priory Church of St Peter — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Walter Hilton Way — southwellminster.org other published source
- Thurgarton Railway Station — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Southwell Minster — southwellminster.org operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Workhouse — nationaltrust.org.uk national body or asset manager