Lewes Priory
Southover, East Sussex, United Kingdom | |
Coordinates | 50°52′5.33″N 0°0′29.63″E / 50.8681472°N 0.0082306°E |
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Visible remains | limited above ground: part precinct wall, hospitium, dorter, rere dorter, first church |
Public access | yes, free all year round |
Lewes Priory is a part-demolished medieval
History
The
In 1264, during the Battle of Lewes, King Henry III retreated with his forces to the Priory precinct which then came under attack from those of Simon de Montfort after his victory over Henry's army in battle. Henry was forced, in the Mise of Lewes, to accept the Council that was the start of Parliamentary government in England.[3]
Foundation
Lewes Priory was founded by
Site
Existing topographical and built features delineate the Priory precinct. The precinct comprises a rough quadrilateral of land about 16.1 hectares in area, 520 metres in width, west to east, and 310 metres north to south bounded along the north side by today's Southover High Street and Priory Street. This precinct was comparable in extent to the walled town of Lewes sited on the ridge to the north.
The original context and relationship of the precinct to the natural topography is now far from clear because the tidal valley of the River Ouse to the south has been drained. In the mediaeval period the south side of the precinct addressed the Cockshut Stream and from there a navigable, tidal watercourse connecting to the River Ouse and, hence, the English Channel. The site can properly be understood as a coastal location and was fully enclosed by high flint walls, being vulnerable to sea-borne attack. The Priory buildings were constructed in the western half, the major church and sacred buildings being in the north-west quadrant. The precinct was terraced in section, stepping down to the south with the buildings set at different levels.
The north-east quadrant has an embankment and wall enclosing its southern side that is of mediaeval date with semicircular buttresses along its eastern extent. This southern wall is a remarkable feature of a defensive, military character. This quadrant is a triple square on plan, the eastern half centres on the conical 'Mount', 46m (150 feet) in diameter and 15m (50 feet) high that is aligned on a sunken field to its east with banks on all sides known as the 'Dripping Pan'. The ages and original functions of these two man-made features are not certain: they appear to have been built by the Priory and may have been constructed as a salt works on an earlier enclosed. elevated plot. If of mediaeval date or earlier, the Mount would certainly have provided an observatory over the Ouse basin, of defensive importance, and a beacon to shipping navigating across it.
Buildings[6]
Modern understanding of the layout and development of the Priory derives largely from archaeological excavations carried out since the 1840s, most extensively by George Somers Clarke. The accepted plan of the Priory was drawn by archaeologist and antiquary Sir
The buildings accommodated an establishment of around 50 monks at any one time throughout the 12th and 13th centuries as well as lay incumbents and visitors. The precinct buildings were built for sacred and temporal functions and were of ashlar stone faced chalk and flint core construction. Quarr limestone shipped from the Saxon quarries on the Isle of Wight was used in the first phase of construction. Caen limestone, imported from Normandy was used with Sussex marble details for the second phase including the construction of the great church. The Priory had its own masons' yard, it manufactured decorated glazed floor tiles and had a school of sacred painting that worked throughout Sussex.[8] The calibre of surviving figurative carvings that are displayed at the British Museum is of a highly sophisticated order.
Great Church of St Pancras
The first Cluniac Priory church was a reconstruction in stone of a Saxon timber church. This may correspond to the single cell structure of which the lower sections of wall and the altar survive, now known as the Infirmary Chapel.
Priory buildings
These comprised the cloister and chapter house directly south of the
Hospitium, now St John the Baptist, Southover
The original hospitium is now used as the local parish church.
Precinct walls
The most extensive surviving mediaeval structures are the precinct walls along the north (140 metres) and east (170 metres) sides of the Dripping Pan. Lengths also survive down Cockshut Road bounding the west side of the precinct. Significant secondary walls within the great precinct sub divide the land, notably the south wall of the Dripping Pan. The precinct walls have otherwise generally been removed for housing development, the railway and a car park near the Mount. Fragments of the Great Gate (circa. 1200 AD) exist in a rearranged form adjacent to the east end of St John's Church. The destruction of the walls has continued in recent years following the grant of Planning Permission by
Dissolution and destruction
The priory was surrendered to the Crown on 16 November 1537 and its destruction carried out at the direction of the King's secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell appointed a specialist demolition team under an Italian engineer, Giovanni Portinari, who recorded the task and undertook it with exceptional thoroughness. In 1538 the manor of Southover and the site of the dissolved monastery were granted to Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell built a substantial house on the site of the prior's lodgings that was known as "the Lord's Place". After Thomas Cromwell's fall from grace the manor was given to Anne of Cleves. Following her death it reverted to the Crown. It was subsequently owned by the Sackville family. The site of the dissolved priory was leased in 1539 for 21 years by Thomas Cromwell to Nicholas Jenney, and this lease was confirmed in 1540, after Cromwell's fall, by Henry VIII. The site was subsequently owned by the Earls of Dorset.[11][12]
After 1830, residential development took place to the east of St John's Church along the northern side of the precinct. This construction cut into the Priory burial grounds, most significantly Regency Priory Crescent (originally known as "New Crescent"). Despite its grand façade, this collection of houses is somewhat random at the back with a wide range of rear elevations. The individual gardens of Priory Crescent end at a private lane to the south which is linked to the original path connecting the Gatehouse to the Priory. This Gatehouse was rotated 90 degrees and moved just a few metres from its original location in order to widen the road. The current gate is the smaller arch that pedestrians would have walked through, rather than the larger one (used for traffic such as horses and carts). The builders sold the human bones, teeth and skulls that they excavated whilst digging foundations. Priory Street was built in several stages with Mount Street projected southwards into the Priory precinct.
In 1845, the
Present situation
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The Priory site to the north of the railway line is in private ownership, formerly occupied by a walled nursery and before that, public gardens, all recently cleared. The standing ruins to the south are separated from the northern site by the railway. The site of Lewes Priory south of the railway line is a public park. It is open throughout the year and entrance is free of charge.[13]
Despite the disruption caused by the construction of the railway across the site, a substantial protected ruin still stands within parkland, albeit only a small proportion of the original priory building fabric. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the ruins were subject of research and conservation and a popular visitor attraction. The Priory reopened in 2011 after a two-year restoration project that improved access and interpretation of the medieval monastery. Some fencing was removed and pathways, benches and interpretive signs were installed.[14] There are interpretative panels and a guide book.
In the park there are two neo-medieval buildings, a
There was once a
A small modern development of relatively simple and attractive housing protrudes east out of Cockshut Road into the precinct. The easternmost of these dwellings overlooks the rear graveyard of St. John's Church, a secluded patch of land including a barn on the site of the original Prior's lodging.
Ashlar stone from the Priory has been used in many later buildings and walls in Lewes, including
Burials
- William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, at the Chapterhouse
- Gundred, Countess of Surrey, with her husband at the Chapterhouse
- Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey also in the Chapterhouse
- Eleanor Maltravers
- John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel[16]
- Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel
- Eleanor of Lancaster
- Elizabeth de Bohun
- William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey
- Elizabeth of Vermandois, Countess of Leicester
- John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey
- John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey
- George Nevill, 4th Baron Bergavenny
Music
Music composed for the Priory has been found in a book called the Lewes Breviary, found in France and in the possession of the Fitzwilliam Museum.[17]
See also
Notes
- ^ Historic England. "RUINS OF LEWES PRIORY (1190737)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
- .
- ^ Kingsford, Charles Lethbridge (1862–1926). Carmen de bello Lewensi. Clarendon press series.
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ignored (help) - ^ Lewis Priory Trust Retrieved 20 July 2015
- ^ Houses of Cluniac monks: Priory of Lewes. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 2. pp. 64–71. Victoria County History. 1973.
- ISBN 0-9530839-1-8
- ISSN 0143-8204.
- ISSN 0141-0016.
- ^ Anderson, Freda (1988). "St Pancras Priory, Lewes: Its Architectural Development to 1200". Anglo-Norman Studies. 11: 1–35.
- ^ "Lewes – St John the Baptist, Southover High Street – Sussex Parish Churches".
- ^ Lower, Mark Antony (1865). The Worthies of Sussex etc. Lewes,Sussex: Geo P. Bacon. p. 193. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
- ^ 'Parishes: Southover,' in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes, ed. L F Salzman (London: Victoria County History, 1940),pp. 45-50, accessed 17 July 2015, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol7/pp45-50
- ^ a b "Priory Park Today", The Priory of St Pancras Lewes, Lewes Priory Trust
- ^ "Lewes Priory reopens after restoration", BBC News, 14 May 2011
- ^ "Club History", Lewes Priory CC
- ^ Cokayne, George Edward (1910). Gibb, Vicary (ed.). Complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct or dormant. Vol. 1. London: St Catherine's Press. pp. 259–260.
- .
Further reading
- Anderson, Freda (1988). "St Pancras Priory, Lewes: Its Architectural Development to 1200". Anglo-Norman Studies. 11: 1–35.
- Victoria County History (1973). "Houses of Cluniac monks: Priory of Lewes". A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 2. pp. 64–71.
- Mayhew, Graham (2014). The Monks of Saint Pancras. Lewes Priory, England's Premier Cluniac Monastery and its Dependencies 1076-1537.
External links
- Lewes Priory Trust The website of the charity managing the Priory on behalf of Lewes Town Council.
- Lewes Priory History Graham Mayhew's website.