The existence of the cartulary in the Priory library was recorded by John Leland shortly before the Dissolution, but its whereabouts in the decades after 1539 are uncertain. Almost a century later it was in the library of Sir Robert Cotton, a notable collector of medieval manuscripts. In 1753 the Cotton library collection was acquired by the newly founded British Museum, but the Christchurch Priory Cartulary was thought lost until it was discovered in an old cupboard in a garret of the Museum in 1837. It is today held in the British Library, where it is still catalogued by Sir Robert Cotton's filing system: Cotton MS Tiberius D.vi.