Monastic grange in the context of "Monastery"

Poulton Chapel was a medieval chapel in the hamlet of Poulton, Cheshire, England (grid reference SJ404584), close to the modern border with Wales. It was built around 1153 by the monks of Poulton Abbey. After the monks moved to Dieulacres between 1199 and 1214 and the abbey was turned into a farming estate for the monks, the chapel served as a one room church for the lay brothers working the land. In the 1487 the chapel was expanded when the estate was leased to the Manley family. During the English Civil War (1642-1651) the chapel was used as a stable and lookout. By 1672 it lay in ruins and by 1718 it was demolished. No above ground structures are extant.

In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived. The word is also applied to the emoluments granted to a commander. They were the equivalent for those orders to a monastic grange. The knight in charge of a commandery was a commander.

A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities (as cenobites) or alone (as hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may also serve as an oratory, or in the case of communities anything from a single building housing only one senior and two or three junior monks or nuns, to vast complexes and estates housing tens or hundreds. A monastery complex typically comprises a number of buildings which include a church, dormitory, cloister, refectory, library, balneary and infirmary and outlying granges. Depending on the location, the monastic order and the occupation of its inhabitants, the complex may also include a wide range of buildings that facilitate self-sufficiency and service to the community. These may include a hospice, a school, and a range of agricultural and manufacturing buildings such as a barn, a forge, or a brewery.

In English usage, the term 'monastery' is generally used to denote the buildings of a community of monks. In modern usage, convent tends to be applied only to institutions of female monastics (nuns), particularly communities of teaching or nursing religious sisters. Historically, a convent denoted a house of friars (reflecting the Latin), now more commonly called a friary. Various religions may apply these terms in more specific ways.

Poulton Abbey was a Cistercian medieval monastic house in Poulton, Cheshire, England, which was founded between 1153 and 1158, and moved in 1214 to a site near Leek, Staffordshire, where it became Dieulacres Abbey. The original site became a grange estate of the abbey, and the chapel at the site was used as a one-room local church. In 1487 the abbey leased the estate to the prominent Manley family and the chapel was expanded to include a nave, chancel, and tower for use as its private chapel. By the 16th century all abbey buildings had been lost, though the site of the chapel was noted on a 17th-century estate map and later on the first Ordnance Survey map (1823).

Archaeological investigations commenced in 1995, first as a joint project of Chester Archaeology and Liverpool University, and later as an independent project – the Poulton Research Project. The chapel was first excavated and just over 800 burials have so far (2015) been excavated. Evaluation trenches and geophysical investigations have also found an extensive Iron Age settlement and Roman landscape. The main monastic compound has not been found.