The last of the nine Carthusian houses to be founded in England and the last monastic foundation in Yorkshire before the Dissolution, Mount Grace Priory dates from 1398, re-founded 1415, an expression of religious piety in the aftermath of the Black Death. The monks lived as hermits in individual cells off the Great Cloister to the north of the priory church, while the lay brothers occupied the buildings of the lesser cloister to the south of the church. The monks came together only for the singing matins and vespers; consequently the church is small and undecorated. The Priory was dissolved in December 1539.
