Lost to History
Small and poor, the Greyfriars monastery was abandoned a half-century after Richard III's burial and subsequently demolished. In the 17th century, a former mayor of Leicester built a house on the land, and though he erected a memorial pillar in the garden, the monastery's location would be forgotten over subsequent centuries of development.
Working from an 18th-century map (below), members of the Richard III society, a modern fan club for the king, and University of Leicester archaeologists determined the monastery's present-day location: under a parking lot.
