| Summary : A small priory for Benedictine nuns founded in honour of St John Baptist circa 1164. In the mid 15th century much of the priory was in ruins and in 1457 it was handed over to John Fray, chief baron of the Exchequer who established a Chantry. This was confiscated by the Crown in 1548 and a country house was built during the mid 19th century on its site and is said to incorporate fabric from the priory. The house is H-shaped on plan, has two storeys and is built of knapped flint with white brick quoins and dressings, and steep old red tile roofs. The building has been subdivided into two houses. Excavations in 1953 recorded several graves, thought to be part of the priory cemetery. The inhumations were orientate west-east, with the head to the west. No traces of coffins were observed. The cemetery site is now part of a rose garden. Hitching documents that James Pulham and Son worked on the gardens of Rowney Priory at the turn of the 20th century. |
More information : (TL 34772022) Rowney Priory on site of Rowney Priory (GT). (1)
A small priory for Benedictine nuns, founded in honour of St John Baptist circa 1164 (2). The advowson of the priory in 1302 was worth nothing, because of the poverty of the house (b), the regular income of which according to a rental of circa 1336-7 was £7.1.4 1/4d (3). At length, owing to increasing poverty and bad management, the continuance of a community was found impossible, and the place and all its possessions were made over on 11 Sept 1457 to John Fray, chief baron of the Exchequer (4), who, unwilling that the religious services should lapse, established in the priory church, and endowed with the conventual property, a perpetual chantry of one chaplain (5). (2-8)
(TL 34772024) Several graves cut through by trench for a drain in reputed site of cemetery, May 1953: skeletons found - outline of graves shown by black earth. Bodies lay head to west, feet to east. No trace of coffins or coffin nails. A few fragments of roof-tile found in the same trench may be from the 15th or 16th century chantry chapel, which had a tiled roof or from the house which was also tiled. A coin of Geo III found at the same time was not with the graves, but was a surface find. (9)
Rowney Priory house stands on the site. Although modern, inside it there is a wall which may have been part of the former house. (10)
A private 17th - 20th century residence with no visible remains of an earlier house. The site of the cemetery (9) is now a rose garden. A stone coffin and an early font are in use as garden ornaments. (11)
A mid 19th century country house said to incorporate fabric
of the Benedictine nunnery founded in 1164, reduced to a Chantry after 1457and confiscated by the Crown in 1548. The house is H-shaped on plan, has two storeys and is built of knapped flint with white brick quoins and dressings, and steep old red tile roofs The building has been subdivided into two houses. (12)
Hitching documents that James Pulham and Son worked on the gardens of Rowney Priory at the turn of the 20th century. (13) |