Llanthony Secunda Priory is a ruined former Augustinian priory in Gloucester, England. It was founded in 1136 by Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as a retreat for the monks of Llanthony Priory, Vale of Ewyas, in what is now Monmouthshire, Wales, from persistent attacks by the local population.
The new priory flourished. By 1150 it had "stately buildings in a landscape of gardens and vineyards"; it became independent from its mother house and it amassed property both in Gloucester and the surrounding area and by the sixteenth century Llanthony Secunda was the sixth largest Augustinian house in England, owning 97 churches and 51 well-appointed manors.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the priory with its lands near Gloucester was granted by the Crown to Arthur Porter, MP for Gloucester. The Porters, and their descendants the Scudamores, used it as a mansion house until the Siege of Gloucester in 1643, when it became part of the Royalist camp. After the siege only outbuildings remained standing, used as a farmstead and stables. From 1794 canal, railway and industrial works gradually encroached on the site and it was used as a scrap-yard between 1974-1991. Today, the remains of Llanthony Secunda Priory are a Scheduled Monument with six Grade I Listed structures, owned by the Llanthony Secunda Priory Trust.
http://www.llanthonysecunda.org/
https://llanthonysecunda.org/visit-us/reading-room/
Gloucester's Religious Houses
Llanthony is one – though, unusually, one in which the service buildings, rather than the church, survives. In addition to the following sites, the rebuilding of St. Mary de Crypt in Southgate Street is attributed to Henry Deane, Prior of Llanthony in the late-15th century.
The Cathedral
The cathedral only became a cathedral in 1541, following the Dissolution of the Benedictine Abbey refounded after the Norman Conquest but with origins as a mid-7th century Saxon minster. The oldest parts of its great church are early Norman but its most dramatic architecture its Perpendicular work, beginning with the pioneering work of the re-cladding of the south transept and choir in the mid-14th century, the huge east window, the fine cloisters and the mid-15th century crossing tower. The cathedral also retains a fine and large Close which seems to be lined by 18th and 19th century buildings. However, behind some of these facades are much older buildings; the site also contains four of its precinct gateways, the 12th century Abbot’s lodging, and the remains of the Infirmary.
St. Oswald’s Priory
The remains of the church of St. Oswald’s Priory, another Augustinian house, consist of an arcade of Norman arches probably dating to the mid-12th century. The Priory had been a fairly large establishment, converted into the parish church of St. Catherine’s at the Reformation and long ruinous. Curiously it came under the jurisdiction of the See of York.
The Blackfriars
The Blackfriars was the house of the Dominican friars established in 1239, benefiting from grants from Henry III. The church was not consecrated until 1284. Shortly after the Dissolution the site was acquired by a clothmaker who converted the church into a house, named Bell’s Place after him, and the cloisters into a cloth factory making knitted caps. Substantial remains of the friary buildings survive in the present much altered structure, including the 13th century roof. The site has a scriptorium on the first floor - possibly the oldest surviving library in England.
The Greyfriars
Greyfriars House opposite the church of St. Mary de Crypt has a facade of circa 1800 but behind it are remnants of the nave and north aisle of the church of the former Franciscan Friary. This had been established around 1230 but had been rebuilt early in the 16th century, just before it fell victim of the Dissolution in 1538. The nave and aisle are virtually identical in width and separating by a single arcade – apparently unique in an English mendicant house.
St. Margaret and St Mary Magdalene
St. Margaret’s church, Wotton, is the former church of the Leper Hospital of St. Margaret and St. Sepulchre which existed in the mid-12th century. The oldest parts of the present church are of the late-13th century.
St. Mary Magdalene is also the remains of a Leper Hospital in Wotton, consiting of the chancel; it probably dates to the mid-12th century with later alterations; the nave was demolished in 1861. The leper hospital was supported by Roger, Earl of Hereford, and as a result of his family's connection to Llanthony it came* under the control of Llanthony Secunda*.
http://www.llanthonysecunda.org/about-the-llanthony-secunda-priory/gloucesters-religious-homes.aspx
Timeline of Llanthony Priory:
William de Cheriton made prior in 1377
In 1381: Thomas of Woodstock with 200 men to suppress local Peasants' Revolt protests
http://www.llanthonysecunda.org/uploads/documents/Llanthony%20Secunda%20Priory%20Timeline.pdf .
