Around 1121 Richard de Belmais, bishop of London, founded a large Augustinian priory in the middle of the village in honour of the great apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, and St. Osyth, the martyr. This became a powerful establishment, which, by the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, it was one of the wealthiest Augustinian monasteries in Europe. Some of the much altered remains can still be seen at St Osyth.