Welcome to the St Osyth Priory Community Consultation website which has been set up to inform and invite comment from the local community about the forthcoming planning application for enabling development within the St Osyth Priory Estate. The need for this development is due to the desperate state of disrepair of these nationally important and much loved buildings and is explained in greater detail in the State of Disrepair section of this website.
Since acquisition, emergency repair works and the need to appoint a large team of expert consultants have been funded by the Sargeant Family but, due to the sheer scale and age of the property and the current cost of repairs and restoration excluding site works being estimated in excess of £26,000,000 a solution must be found to fund these works, not only now but so that the Estate can become self financing for the future.
The St Osyth Priory Estate is unique due to the exceptional range and diversity of its heritage buildings, environmental and ecological features. The buildings alone comprise 22 separate Grade I, Grade II* and Grade II listed buildings and a number of Scheduled Ancient Monuments together with the registered park and garden.
The parkland is set adjacent to the River Colne Estuary Site of Special Scientific Interest which is an extensive wetland habitat of national and international importance for a wide range of wildfowl, invertebrates and salt marsh plant communities. It is also a County Wildlife Site containing a mosaic of historic ponds and avenues, woodland, reed bed and veteran trees combined with extensive wetland habitats which now provide complementary habitat for the birds and other wildlife using the estuarine marshes.
The St Osyth Priory Estate is of such significance as it has a social and cultural history dating back over 900 years with structures still in place from the monastic period and it is essential that it is preserved, restored and protected for the benefit of future generations.
Your comments and feedback are very important to us as it will allow the project team to consider these findings and incorporate changes or modifications where possible.