| Summary : Nunnery and minster founded before 640. It was destroyed by the Danes before 927, at which time its revenues were transferred to Christ Church, Canterbury. Nigel de Muneville re-founded the priory as a Benedictine alien priory of Lonlay in 1095. In 1137, the site, which lay within the bailey of the Castle (TR23NW53) was abandoned, possibly because of erosion, but alternatively because Stephen wished to refortify the castle. The tradition that Folkestone, founded for Eanswith, daughter of Eadbald, was the first Kentish nunnery, is confirmed by the precedence of the abbesses in witnessing charters. The triangle lying seaward of the street called the Bayle, traditionally the site of St Eanswith's minster, was much disturbed in the later 18th century by the building of a fort. Leland in the 1540s noted a burial ground exposed here by coast erosion, and impressive ruins of ecclesiastical character which contained much Roman bonding tile and which he called 'a solemn old nunnery' Lambarde in 1826 reported much the same. Stukely saw pieces of old wall on the cliff edge, "seemingly of man work", and recorded the common occurence of Roman coins. The Domesday Monachorum records that the minster had 10 dependent churches circa 1080. This implies that the church was rebuilt before the alien priory was founded, and that the priory used the minster church as the priory church. |
More information : Eadbald of Kent (616-640) is said to have built a nunnery, dedicated
to St. Peter, for his daughter Eanswith at Folkestone, and this is
mentioned in a charter of 927, in which Folkestone is described as a
place where there was formerly an abbey of nuns which had been
destroyed by the Danes. In the Life of St Eanswith (2) the nunnery is said to have been destroyed by the sea, after the relics had been moved to St Peter's church nearby, but this is plainly a reference to
the destruction of the first Benedictine priory and its re-
establishment at the parish church. (See TR 23 NW 17).
There seems to be no evidence for the exact site of St. Eanswith's
nunnery, but the supposition that it was reoccupied by the first
Benedictine priory seems likely in view of St Eanswith's reputation.
If so, it would have been at C. TR 231359.
A reliquary, thought to be St. Eanswith's, was found concealed in a
wall of the parish church in 1885 (5). (1,2,3,4,5)
The tradition that Folkestone, founded for Eanswith, daughter of
Eadbald, was the first Kentish nunnery, is confirmed by the precedence of the abbesses in witnessing charters. The triangle lying seaward of the street called the Bayle, traditionally the site of St Eanswith's minster, was much disturbed in the later 18th century by the building of a fort. Leland in the 1540s noted a burial ground exposed here by coast erosion, and impressive ruins of ecclesiastical character which contained much Roman bonding tile and which he called 'a solemn old nunnery' Lambarde in 1826 reported much the same. Stukely saw pieces of old wall on the cliff edge, "seemingly of man work", and recorded the common occurence of Roman coins. (6)
Folkestone. A house of nuns, more or less Benedictine (?) founded
before AD 640 and dissolved prior to AD 942. It was a house of alien
Benedictine monks in 1095 and was then Benedictine from c. 1399-1535.
(7)
Folkestone was the site of a nunnery (said to have been the first in
England), founded in the 7th century by Eadbald, King of Kent, the
father of St Eanswith, its first Abbess. (8)
Additional bibliography - not consulted. (9)
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