Michelham Priory is an English jewel in the East Sussex countryside, some 10 miles north of Eastbourne. The sunshine glitters off the leaded windows of the medieval priory turned Tudor manor house onto the scented lawns enclosed by a reedfilled moat where ducks dive and squabble.
The Augustinian priory was founded in 1229 by descendants of the Normans who landed down the coast and seized everything in sight, building castles to keep their new lands and religious buildings to enlist divine aid.