Priory of St. Mary in the Meadow

The ruins of St. Mary in the Meadow Priory, located in Beeston Regis, are the remains of an Augustinian priory church. It was likely founded around 1216 by Margaret de Cressy and dissolved in 1539. The building is constructed primarily of flint with dressings of Lincolnshire limestone and brick.

The surviving structure includes a largely aisleless nave with an outshut to the north, possibly a sacristy, a north transept with an eastern chapel, and a chancel. The west wall stands to gable height, incorporating a 19th-century brick archway window with some remaining stone dressings and tracery fragments, and angle buttresses, some of which have lost their ashlar facing. The south nave wall is partially obscured by vegetation. The north nave wall remains relatively complete, although the central section showing former openings has collapsed.

The outshut, situated at the junction of the nave and transept, features the remains of an unidentified north wall feature, largely robbed of its ashlar. The north transept retains angle buttresses with triangular coping and some 13th-century brick dressings. The north face of the transept displays a sill band below a former window opening, while a window high in the west wall has lost its tracery but remains largely intact. The east chapel has a sill band and some medieval brickwork, with two windows to the north, one of which has lost some stone. One north-east window exhibits a remnant of tracery suggesting Y-tracery with hollow-chamfered ribs and two hollow-chamfered orders to the arch. The east window has been stripped of its materials.

Remains of a bell turret, which collapsed in 1903, are visible on the nave wall south of the crossing, now heavily overgrown with ivy. The chancel features two blocked lancet windows to the south, with a sill band and continuous hood mould, and a 19th-century brick archway with stone jambs, which appears to cover a larger two-centred arch, possibly a relieving arch. The north chancel wall has an opening matching the profile of the transept chapel, along with a sill band and hood mould. The central section of the east wall has been rebuilt, with remnants of a sill and hood band.

Internally, the outshut north of the nave wall is accessible from the nave via a potentially original, now blocked, wide doorway with hollow-chamfered jambs, and a doorway into the transept. Three clustered shafts of the crossing pier are incorporated into the bell turret, indicating a possible intention for a south transept, while other crossing piers are lost. A part-blind arcade with five Early English arches is visible on the south chancel wall, some arches being blocked to windows. A sill band and impost band are also present. Taller blind arches remain on the east wall, alongside the remains of an arcade on the north wall, with three arches still standing, the central one being blind. The remains of a piscina and sedilia are found in the south wall of the transept chapel. To the south are remnants of the cloister, defined by two parallel flint walls extending approximately 20 meters.