Return to introduction or Go to next location St. Thomas Priory. (BASWICH)
St. Thomas ’s Priory is near to Baswich. St. Thomas ’s Priory was dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury. The priory was founded about 1174 by Gerard fitz Brian a burgess of Stafford. He obtained some canons from Darley Abbey in Derbyshire and provided them with the land to build the priory. Gerard stipulated that the priory should be independent of any other and that he should be its patron and protector. Unfortunately Gerard although taking an interest in the priory did not finish what he had begun. The work was completed by Bishop Richard Peche (1161 – 82). In 1182 Bishop Peche resigned his see, took the habit of a regular canon of St Thomas’s, died the same year and was buried there.
The priory was given considerable lands and they continued to be granted lands and property throughout its existence. They possessed two mills, one on the Sow in the south-west corner of the priory the other was at Kingston Brook, less than half a mile north-west of the priory.
During the Barons’ Wars in the later years of Henry III’s reign the priory received a number of grants from Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby, a leading opponent of the king. Robert de Ferrers expressed a wish to be buried in the priory, which he was. The priory also received gifts from the Crown. Henry III gave the priory cash and timber. Edward I in 1275 gave the priory timber. In the later Middle Ages the priory seems to have increased its possessions rather more than might have been expected. Bishop Northburgh visited the priory in March 1347 and found much to criticize. The frequent absence of the superior on business had led to a breakdown of regular discipline and had encouraged waste and needless expense. No accounts and no inventory of the priory’s goods were available. Three of the canons kept hounds in the priory and had gone hunting in the company of laymen. Some canons had adopted worldly fashions in their dress and gone about in tunics and peaked boots and with knives at their belts. The Bishop instructed that in future no canon was to hunt or keep hounds or hawks and all were to adopt regular dress. In 1403 Henry IV stayed at the priory before his victory at Shrewsbury and in 1411gave the canons a licence to acquire property worth £10 a year. In October 1538 the canons surrendered the priory to the Crown during the reformation.
The present entrance to Priory Farm is almost certainly the original mediaeval entrance. The most considerable remains were those of the church and the western and southern ranges of the cloister court. Part of the church can be seen in a stretch of walling 39 feet in length on the north side of the garden of Priory Farm and is work earlier then the 13 th century. Priory Farm incorporates mediaeval features and rooms which previously belonged to the western range of the cloister. Of the southern range of the cloister the best preserved part is its south wall. At the south-western corner the bridge contains some mediaeval work and the present Mill Farm stands on mediaeval sites. The location of the cemetery was made when several bodies were uncovered during the construction of a cesspit in 1965. Today little remains of the Priory. What there is are now part of outbuildings of the farm that occupies the site. Unfortunately modern progress inflicts itself onto the most sacred and protected sites and today (2007) the site is being developed for housing. Several of the outbuildings have already been destroyed, what is left does not give a feel of the greatness and solitude it once had. Priory Mill Pool . From the mill pool it is possible to look towards Milford Common. This view is little changed from that of the view the Cannons would have had with the exception of the modern housing at Baswich.
Return to introduction or Go to next location
|
