We generally used to go into the Church yard, and look with some awe at the Nun’s graves, the earliest of which were already there, the Old Hall at Heath being the Nunnery : this brings to mind an incident some years later, when the youth and beauty of the Nuns of Heath excited a good deal of interest in the neighbourhood. One sultry summer’s afternoon my cousin Ben and I, took a boat from Wakefield down the river, and coming under the shelter of the wood at Heath, made fast our boat and strolled in the grounds. We had not been long there before we heard footsteps, and concealing ourselves behind a tree, saw a long line of Nuns, two and two, approaching us, preceded by the Lady Abbess. We were very much struck by the youthful and beautiful appearance of the young ladies, and my cousin unable to repress some slight exclamation, we were at once discovered by the Lady Abbess, and at a signal from her, each beautiful face was instantly concealed, by the drawing down of a veil, and a retrograde motion immediately commenced by all except the old lady, who came forward in great indignation, speaking angrily in French, of which neither of us understood a word. We of course remained silent. She then broke out, and rated us soundly, in English, in good set terms too, and we retired, making the best excuses we could, the object for which we had really gone, having been obtained.
Henry Clarkson, Memories of Merry Wakefield, 1887
At the east end of Kirkthorpe Church, a row of plain headstones mark the graves of Benedictine nuns who fled the French Revolution to live in exile at Heath Old Hall between 1811 and 1821. The inscriptions give only initials and dates but one records a name, perhaps she had yet to take her vows;
Emilia Monteiro
Born at Lisbon
Died July 3rd
1816
Aged 15
