Sometime around 1147, Stephen de Leye founded an Augustinian priory at Canons Ashby. In 1250 the Priory was extended and parts of this 13th-century rebuilding are incorporated into the current priory church. Leye's descendants were buried in the priory church, but exactly where is not known.
Though never a large monastic house, Canons Ashby was moderately prosperous, but that did not save it from the attentions of Henry VIII's commissioners in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The priory was dissolved in the 1530s and the priory church was converted for use as the parish church. The monastic lands were sold and resold until they ended up in the hands of Sir John Cope in 1538. The church we see today is just the western part of the nave of the medieval priory church.
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