PART of a historic monastery estate has gone on the market for more than £1.5m.

Prinknash Abbey was mentioned in the Domesday Book and was later gifted to the Benedictine abbey of Gloucester.

The estate was later occupied by Benedictine monks in 1928, and there has been a monastery on the estate ever since.

Now part of the estate is being sold for the first time since the 16th century.

It will be sold as a whole or in lots, ranging from a three-bedroom option to around 60 acres of pasture land by Bruton Knowles.

The guide price for the whole of the land and property available at is £1,815,000.

The Abbey of Our Lady and Saint Peter at Prinknash is home to a community of Catholic Benedictine monks.

Their lives are inspired by the Rule of Saint Benedict, a book of precepts written by Saint Benedict in around 530 for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot.

Their community started in the Church of England in 1896 when founder Aelred Carlyle began a small community in London.

In the 1960s, the Prinknash community constructed a large monastery on the other side of the estate from their original house.

In 2008, the community moved back across the estate from the 1972 abbey to the original property, where they had lived from 1928 until 1972.

Guide prices for lots range from £50,000 for paddock land adjoining Prior’s Croft to £635,000 for Prior’s Croft complete with walled garden.

The particulars noted: “The Old Bird Park extends to approximately 6.82 acres of amenity land.

“This comprises of a variety of wildflowers, some scrubland and a range of water features.”