Monasticon Anglicanum: a history of the abbies and other monasteries, hospitals, frieries, and cathedral and collegiate churches, with their dependencies, in England and Wales; also of all such Scotch, Irish and French monasteries, as were in manner connected with religious houses in England / Originally pub. in Latin by Sir William Dugdale...[Now ed., enriched with a large accession of materials taken from leiger books, chartularies, rolls, and other documents preserved in the national archives, public libraries, and other repositories; the history of each religious foundation in English being prefixed to its respective series of Latin charters. By John Caley...Henry Ellis...and the Rev. Bulkeley Bandinel.
- William Dugdale
- Date:
- 1846
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Monasticon Anglicanum: a history of the abbies and other monasteries, hospitals, frieries, and cathedral and collegiate churches, with their dependencies, in England and Wales; also of all such Scotch, Irish and French monasteries, as were in manner connected with religious houses in England / Originally pub. in Latin by Sir William Dugdale...[Now ed., enriched with a large accession of materials taken from leiger books, chartularies, rolls, and other documents preserved in the national archives, public libraries, and other repositories; the history of each religious foundation in English being prefixed to its respective series of Latin charters. By John Caley...Henry Ellis...and the Rev. Bulkeley Bandinel. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![cast the ledde, and it shalbe don with such diligence and savyng as may be, so that or trust is yor lordshyp shall be moch satisfied with that we do, unto whom I most humbly commend my self, moch desiring God to mainteyn yor helth, vor honor, yor harts ease. At Lewes the xxiiij of March, 1537. “ Yor lordshyps servant, “ John Portmari. “ Under nethe here, yor lordshyp shall see a just mesure of the hole abbey. “ The church is in lengthe, cl. fote. The heygthe lxiij. fote. The circumference abowte it, M. D. lviij. fote. The walls of the forefronte, thicke x. fote. The thyckenes of the stepill wall x. fote. The thickenes of the walls intorno, v. fote. Ther be in the churche, xxxij. pillars standyng equally from the walls. An hyghe roufe, made for the bells. Eyght pillars verry bygge. Thicke xiiij. fo. Abovte xlv. fo. Thother xxiiij. ar for the most parte x fote thicke, & xxv. abowght. The heygthe of the greater sorte is xlij. of th’other xviij. fote. The heygthe of the roufe before the hyghe altare is lxxxxiij. fote. In the midds of the church where the bells dyd hange, an cv. fote. The heygthe of the stepil at the fronte is lxxx. fote.” The present remains of the priory itself are inconsider¬ able, although the area, encircled by a wall, contains not much less than forty acres. In 1789, when Mr. Gough published his edition of Camden, the shells of some of the apartments of the priory were distinctly visible, a cloister with rude massive vaulted roofs like caverns, the side of the hall, under which ran a clear stream, an oven seventeen feet wide, and the piers of the gate with the postern with clus¬ tered round pillars of Sussex marble, some adorned with nail-head quatrefoils.a The author of the Ancient and Modern History of Lewes and Brighthelmston published in 1795, says: “ The site of the Priory is now called the Lord’s Place, on account <?f a seat which had been erected there about the end of the sixteenth century, and inhabited by the earls of Dorset; and though the Lord’s Place or Residence here was burned down about an hundred years ago, the name still continues. This building stood on and near the site of the present barn near the church-yard. Eastward of it stood the great church of St. Pancras, and, to the south of that church, stood all the other buildings of the priory. The remains of a large oven, still extant, point out the site of the bakehouse, and, by im¬ plication, that of the kitchen and other culinary offices ne¬ cessarily attached to so large a monastery. The hall and refectory stood over a clear stream, a branch of the Cockshut river, or sewer, which supplied a mill and the priory with a perennial current of the purest water. This hall, which happened to escape the general demolition of Portmarus, was converted by the first earl of Dorset into a malt- house, and its walls are still in better preservation than any other part of the ruins. There are still traces of two vaulted subterraneous passages, whose original use is not easily ascertainable at this day. One seems to have led from an inhabited part of the monastery, perhaps the Cells or Dormitory, to the great church; the other, which seems to have been smaller, is not far from the eastern wall of the orchard or Place garden, and might have been only a covered or arched sewer. The former of these passages has been continued by the imagination of the ignorant, ever prone to the marvellous, as far as the Friars, or the Castle, or St. Anne’s Church, according to the whim or local partiality of the narrator.b “ Of the priory gate there is still enough to give an idea of the grand and expensive style of architecture which this wealthy society affected in all their buildings. It consisted of Caen stone, and Sussex marble, carved and ornamented in the best taste of the fifteenth century.”*5 A south view of the priory and castle was engraved by Buck, 1737. Two views of the priory, S. and W. were engraved by Grose, Sparrow, and Godfrey, 1761. The CELLS to LEWES PRIORY were, Castle Acre, and Hitch am, or Heciiam, in Norfolk; Clifford in Herefordshire ; Farley in Wilts; Horton in Kent; and Prittlewell and Stainesgate in Essex. CASTLE ACRE had its subordinate Cells of Bromholm, Normannes- berchov JReinham, and Slevesholm in Norfolk, and Mendham in Suffolk. West Acre, which Dugdale inserted in the former edition of the Monasticon as a Cell to Lewes, was an independent monastery. Tanner, speaking of HITCHAM or HECHAM in Norfolk, says, “Here is said to have been a cell of Cluniac monks to Lewes,d to which monastery this town was given by their founder, William de Warren, earl of Surrey.” “After the Dissolution the manor and church here, with several other estates belonging to that priory in Norfolk, were granted, 29th Hen. VIII., to Thomas duke of Norfolk.” He adds,, “ Vide Cart. 56 Hen. III. m. 3, pro mere, et feria apud Hicham com. Norf. concess. Priori de Lewes.” Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, is also called a Cell, but seems really to have been only an estate belonging to Lewes priory: as parcel of which it was granted in the 29th Hen. VIII. to Thomas lord Cromwell. Tanner gives these references to manuscripts concerning Melton Mow¬ bray: “In Museo Britan. MS. Peck, vol. iv. Inquis. 16 Edw. II. de redditu in Melton Moubray: vol. v. Inquis. 2 Edw. II. de terris in Melton dandis capellano Cantarite in ecclesia ibid. Plac. assis. in com. Leicestr. 12 Edw. I. rot. 6, 15. Claus. 2 Edw. III. m. 14, de eccl. de Melton Moubray approprianda. Pat. 21 Edw. III. p. 2, m. 10, de custodia et regimine scolarum apud Melton Moubray in manu regis ratione temporalium prioratus de Lewes. Pat. 27 Edw. III. p. 3, m. 7, Composit. pro decimis de Melton Moubray cum Priore de Kirkly Monachorum.” None of these, however, afford evidence that a Cell existed here. Cartae ah lutoesense Coenotmtm m atjro s'ussrvtar spntantfs. NUM. I. [Will. Malmesb. de Gestis Pontif. fol. 147, a.] Sancti Pancratii de Lewes, quod, auctore Willielmo comite de Warrenna, Lanzo, quidam monachus Cluniacensis Camd. Britan, edit. 1789. vol. i. p. 201. b Sir William Burrell, MS.Brit.Mus.Donat.5706, says.Sept. 13, 1772. “ I measured part of the remains of this priory, and found them to be as follows: The oven was 17 ft. diameter; near half of it is stand¬ ing. The roof is composed of tiles setperpendicularly each 63 in. broad, 11 in. long, 1 in. thick. Not far from this oven, on the north side of the ruins, is a subterraneous passage, which common fame reports to have served for a communication with the town of Lewes near Sir Fer¬ dinand Poole’s house: it is in great part filled with rubbish. The width of this passage is three feet, and the heighth clear of rubbish 4 ft. 6 in. in supremo religionis locavit cacumine. Efficaciam viri sub- limitas prsetendit loci, adeo ut veraciter asseratur, nullum omnino monasterium posse illud vincere religione ad mona- chos, affabilitate ad hospites, cliari tate ad omnes. Vincit pompam famae rerum veritas, licet fatiget audientes referen- At the east end of these ruins is a noble cellar supported by columns 68 feet in length, 19 ft. 6 in. wide, 10 ft. high, exclusive of rubbish. I observed in the main walls square holes which ran throughout, as I conceive, to communicate air.” c Anc. and Mod. Hist, of Lewes and Brighthelmst. 8°. Lewes, 1795, pp. 417, 418. d Lib. depositionum in Registr. principali dom. episc. Norvic. pro anno 1632, in causa Byng contra Beales. The Hicham Priory mentioned in Willis’s Hist, of Abbies, vol. ii. p. 146, is a false print for Flitcham in Norfolk.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30455832_0005_0041.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)