Description: Lenton priory was the most important religious house in medieval Nottinghamshire and one of the wealthiest in the Midlands. For some four hundred years it clearly dominated life in Lenton but following its dissolution in 1538 its spiritual impact ceased and its physical dominance began to diminish as parts of the buildings suffered demolition. Thereafter the Priory ruins were treated as a local quarry by all and sundry and almost everything above ground level was eventually removed. With the passing of the years and the erection of new buildings on the site, people even became uncertain as to quite where the Priory buildings had been situated. In the early nineteenth century William Stretton bought much of the land on which the Priory had once stood and built himself a house which he called 'Lenton Priory', now part of Nazareth House. Stretton was a keen antiquarian and excavated many of the priory's foundations, uncovering and removing many thousand monastic tiles. (A few of these tiles have since found their way to the Castle Museum). He is supposed to have made notes of his excavations and drawn up a ground plan of the Priory but these were never found with the rest of papers and so the results of his investigations can never be imparted to a wider public. William Stretton is either the hero or the villain of the piece with regard to the former Priory font, which is now to be found in Holy Trinity church in New Lenton. One story has it that he found it during excavations of the priory site. A second tale is that the font was already resident in the 'new' priory church, Stretton took a fancy to it and persuaded the churchwardens to give it to him in exchange for a new wooden one. After Stretton's death the font was discovered being used as a flowerpot in his garden. The vicar had it brought back and installed in the recently opened Holy Trinity church. The carving on it is among some of the finest seen on any Norman font in the country. It provides us with a hint as to all the other examples of the skills of medieval craftsmen, which were lost with the priory's demise. (Information obtained fron the excellent Lenton Times web-site at http://www.lentontimes.co.uk)