The priory was probably founded c. 1148 - c. 1151, originally as a daughter house of St Sulpice in Brittany. Mary, daughter of King Stephen, was a nun at St Sulpice and moved with some other nuns from St Sulpice to the nunnery of St Leonard, Stratford at Bow. When tensions arose between the nuns of St Sulpice and St Leonard it was agreed that she and the St Sulpice nuns should settle at Lillechurch in the parish of Higham, in a priory founded by her parents. The patent rolls of 1266 state that King John (1189-1199) granted the manor of Lillechurch to the priory, but this may be the confirmation of a grant by a predecessor, i.e. Stephen. In 1227 Henry III granted the manor to the Abbey of St Mary and St Sulpice and the prioress and nuns of Lillechurch in frankalmoign, with an annual fair. In 1346 the nuns were granted a licence by Edward III to acquire land in Higham. However, the names Lillechurch and Higham were used interchangeably to describe the priory from at least the 1230s. The process of dissolution began in 1521, by which time Lillechurch / Higham was decaying and there were only three nuns left. Henry VIII granted the priory to St John's College on 21 October 1522, with all its possessions in Higham, Lillechurch, Shorne, Elmley, Dartford, Yalding, Brenchley, Pympe, Lamberhurst, Cliffe, Hoo, Horndon on the Hill, and 'Hylbrondeslands' in the counties of Kent and Essex. The commissary of the bishop carried out the appropriation on 19 May 1523, and it was confirmed by the bishop and the dean and chapter in March 1524, and by the archdeacon of Rochester on 1 May 1525. Pope Clement VII confirmed it by a bull dated 28 September 1524.