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 Cluniac priory in Lewes, East Sussex in the United Kingdom. The ruins have been designated a Grade I listed building.[1]
The Priory of St Pancras was the first Cluniac house in England and had one of the largest monastic churches in the country. It was set within an extensive walled and gated precinct laid out in a commanding location fronting the tidal shore-line at the head of the Ouse valley to the south of Lewes in the County of Sussex. The Priory had daughter houses, including Castle Acre Priory in Norfolk, and was endowed with churches and extensive holdings throughout England. In Lewes it had hospitiums dedicated to St James and to St Nicholas.[2]
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]
Panorama of the remains of the priory
The Lewes Priory Trust currently manages the site on behalf of Lewes Town Council who are the freeholder.[4] The Priory is a nationally important historical site but an almost lost monument of mediaeval England, the buildings having been systematically demolished after the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. Some parts of the lesser buildings survive above ground, fenced off within a public park. The Priory has been the subject of academic and archaeological study since the mid-nineteenth century and a Heritage Lottery Fund grant in 2009 enabled repair of the surviving fabric, full public access and the provision of information panels interpreting the site and its history.
Foundation
Lewes Priory was founded by William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey and his wife Gundrada, probably in 1081, following their visit to the Priory of Cluny in Burgundy in 1077.[5] The dedication of the new Priory to St Pancras followed from the presence of a pre-existing Saxon shrine to that saint on the site. The cult of St Pancras was a strong link between Saxon England and Rome, having been introduced by Augustine in 597 at the behest of Gregory the Great. William de Warenne was acting under the auspices of a Cluniac Pope, Gregory VII. The ambition of the new work and piety of the new order was intended to legitimise and assert the post-conquest regime in England.
Site
A cross view of the existing ruins
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 Mount and south-facing wall.
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.
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 William Henry St. John Hope and architect Sir Harold Brakspear in 1906 based upon archaeology, documented accounts and hypothesis. Aspects of this have been better explored by later research and excavation.[7] The structural bay division shown of the nave is probably wrong, being elongated in a way inconsistent with Romanesque planning modules and different from that of the choir, the Lady Chapel is missing and certain lay buildings are also not shown. This is, nonetheless, the best guide available and a potent diagram.
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.[9] This is orientated to a different liturgical east from the major church (which is 5.5 degrees closer to current magnetic east) but the same orientation as that of St Michael, Lewes, also a Saxon foundation and of St John, Southover. By the twelfth century it had become the practice to orient a church to face the rising sun on the day of the saint in whose name the church was dedicated, in this case, 12 May, to which orientation the major church appears to have been aligned. The major church was constructed after 1140 AD with the west towers recorded as unfinished in 1268 AD. Of this work nothing survives above ground level. The design of the church was based upon that of its mother church at Cluny, then the largest church in the world, now referred to as Cluny III. Comparison with the surviving Romanesque fabric of the daughter Priory of Castle Acre is relevant. The church had an internal length of 128m (420 feet) from west door to chancel apse, with an internal vault height of 28m (93 feet) at the altar and 32m (105 feet) at the crossing. This was the largest church in Sussex, being longer than Chichester Cathedral including its Lady Chapel, and is comparable in scale to the original form of Ely Cathedral or the surviving form of Lichfield Cathedral.
These comprised the cloister and chapter house directly south of the church and the dorter, reredorter, frater and infirmary to south and east, of which sections survive above ground, as well as the Prior's lodging and entrance gates to the west of which fragments also survive. The dove house to the south-west was a large building that survived until the early nineteenth century. It is reasonable to assume a pattern of bakeries, fish ponds and other food production and storage buildings in this area of a type and layout identified at Castle Acre and other English Cluniac houses. Subterranean cisterns and drainage courses as well as fresh water conduits have been identified by excavation.
Hospitium, now St John the Baptist, Southover
The original hospitium is now used as the local parish church.[10] The twelfth-century nave arcade, with short drum piers and un-moulded arches perhaps divided the men's from the women's ward. The neo-Norman south chapel of 1847 houses the bones of William and Gundrada de Warenne which were unearthed in two lead cists by railway navvies constructing the Brighton to Lewes railway through the site of the Priory chapter house in 1845. On the floor of the chapel lies the original black Tournai marble tombstone from the Priory carved to the memory of Gundrada that had been incorporated into a Tudor period memorial in the church of St Margaret, Isfield.
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 Lewes District Council to Lewes Football Club to demolish a section of the longest surviving extent of the structure along Ham Lane in 2006 for unrealised business objectives whilst a further adjacent length subsequently delaminated and fell in 2008 with repairs started in late 2009.
Dissolution and destruction
The partly undermined remains of the infirmary chapel.The apple tree, herb beds and east minor precinct wall.
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 Brighton, Lewes and Hastings Railway (subsequently the London Brighton and South Coast Railway) drove their new line through the site, digging down to a track bed level to meet the new Lewes railway station, and constructing a line of railway cottages at the east end of Priory Street. This line bisected the foundations of the chapter house and church apse exposing the foundations and burials including those of William de Warenne and Gundrada. The destruction and collateral damage to the Priory remains was significant and the site was split in two but the construction triggered archaeological investigation. Elements of the fabric and finds are held by the Sussex Archaeological Society in their two Lewes museums and by the British Museum.
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 folly tower and a cottage, made from the stone of the Priory, which were built in the gardens of the former Lords Place. A large metal sculpture of a knight's helm (1964) commemorates the Battle of Lewes. The herb garden was recreated by local historians with medicinal plants that would likely have been in the original. The Apple Orchard has six rare old Sussex varieties.[13]
There was once a minigolf course laid out over the challenging slopes of the infirmary, but this, and the public tennis courts, have been closed by the local authority. Much of the Priory precinct is given over to recreation and sports including Lewes Football Club, currently at the Dripping Pan, the Lewes Bowls Club and the Southdowns Sports Club. The Lewes Priory Cricket Club, formerly at the Dripping Pan, now play at the Stanley Turner Ground, nearby.[15]
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 Southover Grange and gardens and can be identified on walks around the town. Lewes Priory School, nearby, commemorates this ancient foundation.
↑ Baker, Audrey. "Lewes priory and the early group of wall paintings in Sussex. Walpole Society, 31 (1946 for 1942-3), 1-44". The Volume of the Walpole Society. Walpole Society. ISSN0141-0016.
↑ Anderson, Freda (1988). "St Pancras Priory, Lewes: Its Architectural Development to 1200". Anglo-Norman Studies. 11: 1–35.
↑ 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
↑ 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.
↑ Holder, Stephen (1985). "The noted Cluniac breviary~missal of Lewes: Fitzwilliam Museum manuscript 369". Journal of the Plainsong & Mediaeval Music Society Holder. 8: 25–32. doi:10.1017/S0143491800000763.
Further reading
Anderson, Freda (1988). "St Pancras Priory, Lewes: Its Architectural Development to 1200". Anglo-Norman Studies. 11: 1–35.
The Battle of Lewes was one of two main battles of the conflict known as the Second Barons' War. It took place at Lewes in Sussex, on 14 May 1264. It marked the high point of the career of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, and made him the "uncrowned King of England". Henry III left the safety of Lewes Castle and St. Pancras Priory to engage the barons in battle and was initially successful, his son Prince Edward routing part of the baronial army with a cavalry charge. However, Edward pursued his quarry off the battlefield and left Henry's men exposed. Henry was forced to launch an infantry attack up Offham Hill where he was defeated by the barons' men defending the hilltop. The royalists fled back to the castle and priory and the King was forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, ceding many of his powers to de Montfort.
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England. The town is the administrative centre of the wider district of the same name and the location of East Sussex County Council at the county hall.
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Lord of Lewes, Seigneur de Varennes, was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He is among the few known from documents to have fought under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. At the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, he held extensive lands in 13 counties, including the Rape of Lewes, a tract now divided between the ceremonial counties of East Sussex and West Sussex.
Castle Acre Priory was a Cluniac priory in the village of Castle Acre, Norfolk, England, dedicated to St Mary, St Peter, and St Paul. It is thought to have been founded in 1089 by William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey. The order originated from Burgundy. Originally the priory was sited within the walls of Castle Acre Castle, but this proved too small and inconvenient for the monks; hence, the priory was relocated to the present site in the castle grounds about one year later.
Lewes Castle is a medieval castle in the town of Lewes in East Sussex, England. Originally called Bray Castle, it occupies a commanding position guarding the gap in the South Downs cut by the River Ouse and occupied by the towns of Lewes and Cliffe. It stands on a man-made mount just to the north of the high street in Lewes, and is constructed from local limestone and flint blocks.
Gundred or Gundreda was the Flemish-born wife of an early Norman baron, William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey. She and her husband established Lewes Priory in Sussex.
St Pancras, St. Pancras or Saint Pancras may refer to:
Castle Acre Castle and town walls are a set of ruined medieval defences built in the village of Castle Acre, Norfolk. The castle was built soon after the Norman Conquest by William de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey, at the intersection of the River Nar and the Peddars Way. William constructed a motte-and-bailey castle during the 1070s, protected by large earthwork ramparts, with a large country house in the centre of the motte. Soon after, a small community of Cluniac monks were given the castle's chapel in the outer bailey; under William, the second earl, the order was given land and estates to establish Castle Acre Priory alongside the castle. A deer park was created nearby for hunting.
Thetford Priory is a Cluniac monastic house in Thetford, Norfolk, England. Founded in 1103 by Roger Bigod of Norfolk, Thetford was one of the most important monasteries of East Anglia.
Reigate Priory is a Grade I listed building in Reigate, Surrey, England. It was founded in the first half of the 13th century as an Augustinian priory. Following its dissolution in 1536, the buildings were converted to a private residence for William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham. Later owners included Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, who led the English fleet against the Spanish Armada, and John Parsons, one of the MPs for Reigate and the former Lord Mayor of London.
The Dripping Pan is a football stadium in Lewes, England. It has been home to Lewes F.C. since their foundation in 1885. It had previously been used by Lewes Priory Cricket Club, though the ground itself had been used by the people of Lewes as an area for recreation, including athletics, as far back as written records exist.
St Peter's Church is the Church of England parish church of the parish of Ardingly in Mid Sussex, one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. The present building dates from the 14th century and was restored during the Victorian era, but Christian worship on the site has a much longer history. The stone-built, Decorated Gothic-style church, west of the village centre, has been designated a Grade I Listed building.
Prittlewell Priory is a medieval priory in the Prittlewell area of Southend, Essex, England. It was founded in the 12th century, by monks from the Cluniac Priory of St Pancras in Lewes, East Sussex, and passed into private hands at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. The last private owner, the jeweller R. A. Jones, gave the priory and the grounds to the local council. The grounds now form a public park, Priory Park, and the Grade I listed building is open to the public as a museum. The remains of the priory are a scheduled monument.
Holy Trinity Church is an Anglican church in the village of Cuckfield in the district of Mid Sussex; one of seven local government districts in the English county of West Sussex. It was founded in the 11th century and was in the possession of Lewes Priory by 1090. The present structure dates from the mid-13th century but was extended in the 14th century and heavily altered and restored during the Victorian period, with much interior work by Charles Eamer Kempe and stained glass by both Kempe and the Clayton and Bell firm. The church's spire was replaced in 1981 following a fire. Former chapels of ease in outlying hamlets have closed, and the church now serves a large rural area in the centre of Sussex. It is protected as a Grade I listed building.
Southover General Baptist Chapel is a former Baptist place of worship in the ancient village of Southover, now part of the town and district of Lewes, one of six local government districts in the English county of East Sussex. Founded in 1741 as the first Baptist place of worship in the area, it attracted a congregation of General Baptists whose theological views gradually moved towards Unitarianism. This led to their union with the members of the nearby Westgate Chapel, after which the flint and brick building housed other congregations and secular groups before its conversion to a house. The building is protected as a Grade II by English Heritage.
The Church of St John sub Castro is an Anglican church in Lewes, the county town of East Sussex, England. It was built in 1839 on the site of an 11th-century Saxon church, and has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building. In the churchyard is a memorial to Finnish prisoners from the Crimean War who died while confined in Lewes Naval Prison; the memorial is also listed Grade II. The church continues to be active as a parish church in the diocese of Chichester.
Holy Sepulchre Church was a medieval monastic house in Thetford, Norfolk. The ruined nave of this 14th-century church are the only surviving remains in England of a priory of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, who followed the Rule of Saint Augustine and aided pilgrims to Christ's tomb. It was later used as a barn, and is a Grade I listed building.
Wings Place, formerly Ditchling Garden Manor, also known as Anne of Cleves House, is a Grade I country house in Ditchling, East Sussex, England. It is a Tudor house, said to be one of the best examples in the country.
Sussex in the High Middle Ages includes the history of Sussex from the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the death of King John, considered by some to be the last of the Angevin kings of England, in 1216. It was during the Norman period that Sussex achieved its greatest importance in comparison with other English counties. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Sussex was on the main route between England and Normandy, and the lands of the Anglo-Norman nobility in what is now western France. The growth in Sussex's population, the importance of its ports and the increased colonisation of the Weald were all part of changes as significant to Sussex as those brought by the neolithic period, by the Romans and the Saxons. Sussex also experienced the most radical and thorough reorganisation of land in England, as the Normans divided the county into five tracts of lands called rapes. Although Sussex may have been divided into rapes earlier in its history, under the Normans they were clearly administrative and fiscal units. Before the Norman Conquest Sussex had the greatest concentration of lands belonging to the family of Earl Godwin. To protect against rebellion or invasion, the scattered Saxon estates in Sussex were consolidated into the rapes as part of William the Conqueror's 'Channel march'.
Giovanni Portinari was an Italian military engineer who served several Tudor monarchs of England. He is most famous for organising the demolition of Lewes Priory in 1538 on the orders of Thomas Cromwell, the chief minister of King Henry VIII.
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