The Old Priory

Ashore in Yarmouth from his ship in 1590, Arthur Tresize is persuaded to go on a mysterious journey with an elderly lady. She tells him she has been looking in the port for a tall, well-made sailor with chestnut or red hair whose services she can command, with the promise of a fortune, for a few days - and he fills those requirements exactly. Whatever regrets he was to have later about what happened in those few days, his reward enabled him to leave the sea for ever, and set himself up as a prosperous farmer and landowner. Buying up the disused demesne land of the monks at Ockley in Suffolk, even though it was said to be under a curse, he built himself a house from the stones of the old ruined Priory, and settled down to raise a family. The Old Priory tells his story, and the stories of his children and grandson, over the next sixty years or so...