Arundel Priory

Last updated March 11, 2019

The Priory of St Nicholas was established at Arundel in West Sussex, England by Roger de Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury, in 1102, when Gratian, a monk of Sées in Normandy, became first prior. In 1269, the priory granted Master William de Wedon, in return for various gifts, board and lodging, and a room in the priory in which he might conduct a school.

Arundel is a market town and civil parish in a steep vale of the South Downs, West Sussex, England.

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering East Sussex to the east, Hampshire to the west and Surrey to the north, and to the south the English Channel.

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

Arundel College of the Holy Trinity

The priory was dissolved in 1380, when a college of the Holy Trinity with an adjoining hospice was established probably on the same site by Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel as a foundation to serve the needs of twenty aged poor men in the area and to provide education.

Richard FitzAlan, 4th or 11th Earl of Arundel and 9th Earl of Surrey, KG was an English medieval nobleman and military commander.

The buildings of the college are architecturally in the same style as the new parish church of the same date. The Fitzalan Chapel of the parish church formed the college's north side, and there were two-storeyed east, south and west ranges; the east range lies beyond the east end of the Fitzalan chapel, and the outer wall of the west range is aligned with the east wall of the south transept of the church.

The Fitzalan Chapel is located within the eastern end of the church building constructed on the western grounds of Arundel Castle. This church building is one of the very few church buildings that is currently divided into two worship areas, one Catholic and one Anglican, with the western side of the church building occupied by the Anglican church of St Nicholas. The Catholic chapel, now the private mausoleum of the Dukes of Norfolk, is a Grade I listed building.

In 1544 Arundel College was surrendered to the Crown, which then sold it back to the Earl of Arundel for 1,000 marks. It has remained in the hands of the Howard family since that time. For a period of nearly three centuries it lay derelict, much of it having been demolished and further damage inflicted on what remained during the course of the English Civil War in the seventeenth century

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") over, principally, the manner of England's governance. The first (1642–1646) and second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

St Wilfrid's Priory

There was a series of rebuildings and alterations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to form an agent’s house, a laundry and then a Catholic chapel with attached chaplain’s residence. Between 1804 and 1815 the building was rebuilt in Gothic style when it housed a private school. Further restoration work was undertaken in the middle of the nineteenth century, when in 1861 the south-east range was converted as a convent known as St Wilfrid’s Priory, as it remained until the 1950s. At the same period the appearance of the north side of the courtyard was altered by the building of the funerary chapel of Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk (d. 1860), which projects from the south side of the Fitzalan Chapel

Henry Granville Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk, was an English peer and politician. He was hereditary Earl Marshal and Chief Butler of England.

The Priory was run as a school by sisters of the (Catholic) Franciscan Order for the Duke of Norfolk; although it accepted young children from various backgrounds and economic circumstances, it also taught the dukes four daughters during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Classes were held in a large room on the first floor. There were never more that 28 pupils at one time. Gymnastics classes were taken outside the priory grounds, as the nuns were not equipped to manage that aspect of the curriculum, a male teacher came in to take these classes. The children walked through a gate into the grounds of the castle, to a ground floor room off the castle courtyard. Classes were held there weekly, and on one or two very rare occasions in summer children were permitted to swim in the Duke's swimming pool, or to play ball games on the Duke's famous cricket pitch in the castle park.

Between c. 1961 and 1974 the college buildings were used as a children's home with 30 residents, and after 1976 the south range and part of the east range were converted as a care home and the north-east corner was divided into flats for the elderly, both run by the Order of Knights of Malta Homes Trust; and today by its successor charity, the Order of St John Care Trust.

Sources

M.T. Elvins, Arundel Priory 1380-1980: The College of the Holy Trinity, 1981

'Arundel', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 5 Part 1: Arundel Rape: south-western part, including Arundel (1997), pp. 10–101.

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The Duke of Norfolk is the premier duke in the peerage of England, and also, as Earl of Arundel, the premier earl. The Duke of Norfolk is, moreover, the Earl Marshal and Hereditary Marshal of England. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk is Arundel Castle in Sussex, although the title refers to the county of Norfolk. The current duke is Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk. The dukes have historically been Catholic, a state of affairs known as recusancy in England.

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Alan Percy (c.1480-1560) was an English churchman and academic, Master of St John's College, Cambridge, and later Master of Trinity College, Arundel which he surrendered to Henry VIII in 1545.

References

Coordinates: 50°51′21″N0°33′26″W / 50.855786°N 0.557132°W / 50.855786; -0.557132 (Arundel Priory)

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