I am fortunate to regularly receive many letters and one recently stood out as it came from the Secretary of the Codnor Castle Heritage Trust, Derbyshire. Codnor Castle is the ancestral home of the de Grey family who were the benefactors of the Carmelites here at Aylesford. The letter informed me that in recent excavations of the castle’s chapel, some distinctive stones marked with the cross were discovered.

As well as giving his manor at Aylesford, Baron Richard de Grey, also gave land to the Carmelites, near Fleet Street, for their London House. Part of the crypt can still be seen if you venture around Carmelite and Whitefriars Streets which are just off Fleet Street. The de Grey family were also benefactors to the Carmelites in Nottingham. Baron Richard de Grey was a returning crusader who came from a powerful family. His uncle was Walter de Grey, one of the longest serving Archbishops of York. He was present at the signing of the Magna Carta, in 1215. His impressive tomb can still be seen in York Minster. Baron Richard de Grey and several generations of his family were interred in the crypt of the Choir Chapel, in the original mediaeval church, dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady. During the excavations of the 1950s their bones were discovered and were reinterred in 1958. The grave is marked by a simple cross in the piazza. The most famous descendent of the de Greys was Lady Jane Grey, the sixteenth century nine-day Queen.