More information : (SU 21046044) Holy Trinity Priory and Church (NR)
(site of) (NAT). (1)
A hostel with three priests for the entertainment of poor travellers was founded at Easton in 1245, and became a Trinitarian Priory in 1251. The buildings and church were destroyed by fire in 1493 and although apparently restored to some extent, were ruinous in 1536 when the Priory was dissolved and the property passed to the Seymour family. The exact site is uncertain. One tradition places it at the OS position where banks and enclosures are said to be visible.
Another tradition prefers the village itself, and here there is rather more evidence to support it: (a) there is an old record that the Priory Church was only 60 yards from the old Parish Church (built before 1245, and pulled down in 1369, and its material used to enlarge the Priory Church, which thereafter served both Priory and village), and masonry and tiles, suggestive of a church, were found in 1953, sixty yards east of the present parish church (ie at about SU 20756040); and as the finds were late 14th c the church they represent must be the Priory Church and not the original parish church (from which it follows that the present church occupies the site of the original church) (b) there are said to be banks and mounds in the vicinity of the water-pipe trench finds (c) the Old Vicarage in the village is supposed to have been the guest house of the Priory, and a cottage in the village street is said to have been converted from old stables (and, in an earlier account, stables are mentioned in connection with the
priory).
Enclosures which could represent the Priory site exist at the OS site and west of it at SU 209604 are two separate complexes.
(SU 21046037) Several banks up to 0.5m high form rectangular enclosures or fields. No evidence of a building remains at the OS siting, or in the vicinity of the pipe-trench finds. OS siting accepted, pending confirmatory evidence to the contrary. (2-6)
Listed. (7)
Field work between the church and burial ground has noted molehills with amounts of Mediaeval roof tiles, building stone and Mediaeval nails, while molehills in the enclosure to the East show no such signs. (8) |