Colne Priory at Earls Colne, Essex was a Benedictine priory, initially a dependent cell of Abingdon Abbey, Berkshire (now in Oxfordshire). It was founded by Aubrey de Vere I and his wife Beatrice in or before 1111. One piece of research suggests that the original Abbot, Faritius, was appointed in 1101; he initially placed six monks at the site.
Their eldest son Geoffrey had died at Abingdon about seven or eight years earlier and was buried there. On his deathbed, Geoffrey had bequeathed to Abingdon the church and lands at Kensington, Middlesex, and his parents and brothers had confirmed that grant, as had King Henry I.

" Sir John de Botetourt having been buried in 1324. Prior to that date he occupied the Manor as underlord of the de Veres - Earls of Oxford, at Hedingham Castle, and Priory of Earls Colne, to whom the Church at that time belonged. "

The house as it is today was built in about 1825 in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style for Henry Holgate Carwardine. It was the last of a series of manor houses built on the site of a Benedictine priory founded by the de Vere family, Earls of Oxford, in the early 12th century, the remains of which lie buried under lawn in the grounds of Colne Priory and are designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument

Following the dissolution of the medieval Colne Priory in 1536, its land and buildings were granted to John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, who demolished the priory church and built a manor house on the site. In 1583, the 17th Earl, Edward de Vere, a notorious spendthrift, sold the manor of Earls Colne to his steward, Roger Harlakenden, whose son, Richard, bought the adjoining manor of Colne Priory in 1592.

Colne Priory remained in the Harlakenden family until 1672, when it passed by marriage to the Androwes family and later, in the early 18th century, to one John Wale, who demolished what remained of the medieval buildings and remodelled the old de Vere house in about 1740, reputedly furnishing it with ‘chimney pieces made from the ruinated tombs of the Oxfords’.