Monument Type(s):

• FRANCISCAN FRIARY (13th century to 16th century - 1245 AD to 1538 AD)

Summary

In 1245 Henry III ordered that a suitable site be granted to the Friars for buildings a church and accommodation. The church was built by Richard Pride, the other buildings by Laurence Cox. The house, though poor, was maintained in good order until its surrender at the Dissolution in 1538.

Related records

Associated Finds

• FSA1948 - BUTTON (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1540 AD)
• FSA1773 - FLOOR TILE (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1540 AD)
• FSA1947 - FLOOR TILE (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1540 AD)
• FSA1949 - HUMAN REMAINS (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1540 AD)
• FSA343 - VESSEL (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1540 AD)

Associated Events

• ESA2012 - 1993 evaluation of proposed flood alleviation scheme at Frankwell and Greyfriars, Shrewsbury by Giffords & Partners Ltd
• ESA2068 - 1960 field observation by the Ordnance Survey
• ESA2069 - 1967 building recording
• ESA2070 - 1993 Evaluation of St Julian's Friars area, Shrewsbury by Oxford Archaeological Unit
• ESA3682 - 1993 geophysical survey at St Julian's Friars by Stratascan
• ESA5849 - 2003-2004 excavations off St Julian's Friars by Marches Archaeology
• ESA8385 - 2017 WB on electricity cable at 25 St. Julian's Friars, Shrewsbury by SCAS

Description

Martin, (<1a>) quoting from Eccleston and others, says, in an account of the architecture of the friary, that the site for the Grey Friars at Shrewsbury was ordered by royal grant on October 30, 1245. The church, was still building in 1251. The site lay outside the town walls to the south-east, extending to the river, and in July 1246, the friars were licensed to construct a gate in the town wall. This gate was enlarged to allow the passage of carts in 1267. In 1520, the Corporation granted 10 marks towards the cost of repairs, carried out by the guardian at the time of Dr. Duffield, to the convent granary, then in ruins. An inventory, prepared when the house was surrendered in 1538, mentions kitchen, hall, chamber, frater and two boxes 'with evidences'. Martin concludes with a description of the remains of the friary which, he says, belong to a subsidiary structure of uncertain use, now incorporated in cottages on the river bank. The building apparently early 16th century, is of red sandstone, with three 3-light windows with somewhat depressed external arches on the south side, an original buttress on the east, and a plain doorway on the north side. The upper part is modern. Pearson (<1b>) says '... has within these few years (i.e. before 1824) been divided into small tenements' and he gives an illustration of what the building once was. A stone coffin found in the chapel is, he says, preserved in the adjoining garden. AO/60/245/6. Owen and Blakeway (<1c>) refer to a grant to the friars in 1371 of a certain plot for the making of a 'staindelfe' (stone quarry). Also to Speed's Map, on which, they say, is marked 'Friars London', the meadow where the walls of the frairs' garden may still (1825) be traced. <1>

The remains of the Friary are as described by Martin though part of the east wall is of brick. See GPs AO/60/233/1 - Friary from SE and AO/60/233/2-Friary from NW. No trace of the stone coffin was found. <1d>

In 1987 T Brown prepared a summary of the history of this site. The following is a summary of the main points: ->

-> In 1245 Henry III ordered that 'a sufficient and suitable site' in Shrewsbury should be assigned to the Friars for the building of their church and for their accommodation. The area granted lay outside the town walls. A gate was made in the Town wall in 1246 for access and enlarged in 1267. There was some rebuilding in the C16. Dissolved 1538. The inventory at the Dissolution lists a number of buildings, but is not necessarily comprehensive. ->

-> The existing portion (Nos 20-26) (SMR PRN 10526) is believed to have been the Frater, with a long low building to the west demolished in 1967 being the dormitory. The building range further to the west was destroyed in 1879 when the GreyFriars bridge was built. …The argument for a typical and sizeable complex of buildings is reinforced by the decision of the general chapter of the whole order to meet there in 1509. The extent of the land holdings is discussed. ->

-> Within what is thought to have been the precinct, only the cemetery can be approximately located. In 1952 skeletons were discovered opposite 'the portion now remaining' in a pit being dug in the workshop of Vincent Greenhouse. The 1882 OS 1:500 map .. Shows that the range believed to have been moved in 1879 was not extensively cleared and that the approach to the bridge was not fully cleared until 1927, a covered passage leading from the Friars Lane until that time <2>

In October 1245 Henry III ordered the sheriff and the Shrewsbury bailiffs to find a suitable site for the friars minor to build a church and establish their house. The next month he provided 50 loads of lime, and the following year (1246) allowed the friars to raise the height of the town wall and make a gate through; they were given permission to widen the gate for wheeled traffic in 1267. The site was donated by the king; the church was built by Richard Pride, and other buildings by Laurence Cox. 'But the gifts were too lavish' and Cox was asked by the provincial minister to take down the stone-built refectory walls and replace them with mud walls, which he did. Building activity is recorded in the late 14th century, and the friars obtained the use of a stone quarry near their house in 1371. Charges of obstructing the watercourse in 1382 and making purprestures/extending their land into the Severn in 1440 show that the friars were involved in reclamation activities. In 1420 a flood is recorded that inundated the church to a depth of eight feet. Grants were made to the friars by the corporation: for repairs to the granary in 1520, and for necessary repairs in 1529; William Duffield, the warden at the time, had found the site dilapidated, and set about rebuilding. The house, though poor, maintained good order until surrender in 1538 … The surviving building … possibly the frater on the S side of the cloister is of early C16 date. Originally single stories on the N side, but cellared on the S where the ground falls away to the river … .A timber framed building, forming a continuation of the range to the west, was demolished in 1967 [<11>]. It incorporated a long unheated first floor room which may have been a dormitory <3>

(The surviving building) was made into houses in 1794 <7>

In 1994 Giffords carried out an evaluation of the Greyfriars area in connection with the proposed Shrewsbury Flood Alleviation Scheme. Their documentary assessment states that by 1566 the Friary was in ruins [<22>] and that in the early 16th century some of the buildings were rebuilt in stone [<3>], perhaps explaining why some survived. They found that on Rocque's map of 1746 [<23>] the buildings of the Friary appeared to be further from the waterfront than today, perhaps indicating that the riverbank has eroded since the mid C18. On Hitchcock's map of 1832 [<24>] a towpath is shown along the riverbank adjacent to the site of Friary buildings. Two small trial trenches demonstrated that some medieval deposits survive, although much disturbed by later construction and garden activity <18>

In 1993 the Oxford Archaeological Unit carried out an evaluation of the St Julian's Friars area on the site of a proposed development. Historical detail is given in an appendix to the report, which argues that the Friary must have contained a sizeable complex of buildings, especially given the decision of the whole order to meet there in 1509, with the sole surviving building probably forming part of an outer cloister. Several of the OAU trenches appeared to provide evidence for the friary precinct having occupied an area of land reclaimed from the flood plain in the C13. The initial phase of land reclamation appears to have been massive in scale, raising the ground level by c 1.1m over an area approximately 70m by 80m. Later in the life of the Friary it appears that the reclaimed area was extended, creating the waterfront area on which the surviving medieval building PRN 10526 (Nos 20 to 25 St Julian's Friars) was then constructed. The reclaimed area appears to have been protected from river erosion by a massive wall, only robbed out after the C17. Within the raised platform envisaged as the Friary precinct, the OAU surmised that the cloister and chapter house lay on the site of the present garage and offices <19>

Evaluated for MPP in 1990-1, as one of less than 10 Friaries <21>

Only one building [PRN 10526] now survives above ground; a western range [PRN 62466] and later attached block [PRN 62467] having been demolished in 1967. An intensive desk-top, geophysical, and field evaluation in 1993 suggested that the precinct was built on a reclamation platform [PRN 62468], a terrace of dumped material, over the alluvium. Calculations from the height OD of the reclamation platform suggest the 1420 flood event may have flooded up to the 52.40m-53.00m range. The core of the friary buildings certainly lies to the north of the standing building, a GPR (radar) survey showing a concentration of hard features (walls, floors etc) in that area. It has been suggested that the site comprised a double-cloister plan, the main cloister occupying the space east of St Julian's Friars, including no.10 and the ground to the south (the garage workshops), from whence came two reported burial sightings, possibly from the cloister garth. The standing buildings would therefore have formed the south side of a subsidiary cloister. A further group of burials [PRN 60217] to the north may have belonged to a lay cemetery adjoining the town ditch [PRN 62474] [<19>] <26>

Excavations took place within the Friary area in 2003-4. The report contains additional historical information: ->

-> The Franciscans or Grey Friars were one of the largest mendicant orders. They followed a doctrine of poverty which they spread through preaching. They were predominantly urban institutions, often establishing their houses on the fringe of towns just outside the town wall, exactly the situation of the house on St Julian's Friars. The order arrived in England in 1224 and the rapid expansion of towns in the 13th century led to their rapid growth … [The building and subsequent history of the house is described as in other sources eg [<3>]] …The 1382 charge of obstructing a watercourse was followed by another in 1389; the 1440 reclamation activities also caused trouble by deflecting the river and damaging the town walls and bridge, and in 1443 there were similar activities on the Coleham side of the river. The decision of the general chapter of the whole order of England to meet at the Shrewsbury house in 1509 argues for a sizable complex, but it appears to have been in need of repair a decade later, when grants were issed [as <3>]. It was poor in 1538 at the time of the Dissolution, having no property or rents, but was popular locally. A lease of 1544 shows that it had, however, possessed small landholdings, consisting of ten parcels of arable land amounting to three to four acres. These lay to the east and west of the Friary [see PRNs 08541, 08543], though the exact east and west boundaries remain unknown. ->

-> The main buildings of the complex would undoubtedly have been arranged around a cloister, although there was no standard building layout for friaries. There are some possible traces on the historic maps of the Friary layout, 19th century buildings perhaps echoing part of the cloister, though the most interesting map in this regard (Hitchcock's 1832 map) has serious surveying inaccuracies. The Dissolution inventory lists an upper vestrye, lower vestrye, kechyng, hall, chamber, as well as the 'frater'. This is probably an incomplete list: a lease of 1544 also refers to the Quyer, steple and chapter house, and a friary would also normally have been included a guest house, a lodging for the guardian, a school house, buttery, brewhouse and dorter. The church itself would typically have been a long barn-like building <19>]. The sole surviving building [PRN 62465, 10526] must have been at the southern end of the complex. Though widely identified as the frater, it probably dates from the early 16th century, near the end of the Friary's lifetime. ->

-> The Friary site was heavily robbed in the years following the Dissolution (c1538), culminating in a series of quarrying operations to remove masonry from the footings. The remains of these operations were seen in the excavation trenches cut in 2003-4. Despite the robbing, the trenches recovered highly important information regarding the plan of the buildings and conclusive evidence for at least two phases of construction with radically different layouts; interestingly, the walls seen in the trenches were not rectilinear to the surviving building and attached range [PRN 62465, 62466]. Trench 3 was largely occupied by wall footings or robber trenches (the phase 1 walls had more frequently escaped the robbers than the phase 2 walls), whilst trench 4 added a further definite wall line to the overall plan. In all likelihood, the portions of the trenches not occupied by walls were probably internal areas, except, perhaps, for the western quarter of trench 3, which may have been external. The area excavated was too small to allow the function of the buildings to be identified. ->

-> The first phase of construction took place in the 13th century. The walls belonging to the first phase of construction were predominantly of bright red sandstone, probably from The Quarry [PRN 01474]. They appear to have been narrower than the second phase walls, at least in this area, and it has been suggested that the building superstructures may have been of mud construction. No floor levels were identified from phase 1, but the remains of a grave, possibly (but not definitely) an interior burial, perhaps that of a senior figure, were seen. The body had apparently been dug up and moved to a new location (although the lower jaw was missed), during or just after the phase 2 construction works, after which the grave was sealed by landfills cut by a bell-casting pit. Human bones found scattered throughout the fills of the post Dissolution robber trenches indicates that other burials may have been disturbed by the reconstruction. ->

-> The second phase of construction took place in the later 13th or 14th century, with the earlier walls being reduced to ground level, and in some cases robbed out and sealed with further landfills. It is possible, but not proven, that the rebuild coincided with a quarry being made available to the Friars in 1371: the pottery evidence, though sparse, would not contradict this. The stone was certainly different from the first phase, being mostly mauve sandstone with some greyish white. The context for the rebuild may, however, have been the climatic deterioration which began somewhat earlier in at the end of the 13th century. Evidence from other sites in Shrewsbury shows that once dry deposits started to become waterlogged in this period (which lasted until c1500). The first phase of construction would have taken place in the preceding dry period, and it is likely that the rising incidence of flooding after c1280 seriously affected the riverside Friary (particularly if there were buildings of mud construction). Landfills associated with the second phase raised the surface another 0.3m. Second phase floor levels were clearly identified, though the evidence was fragmentary. It seems that later robbers had dug up most of the ceramic floor tiles, but broken examples were often discarded into robber trenches; at least three main types of decorated glazed tile and two undecorated were found. <27>

In October 2017 the Archaeology Service carried out a watching brief on groundworks associated with laying an electricity cable below ground at 25 St. Julian’s Friars (centered on SJ 4948 1219). The watching brief recorded a pit and a sandstone wall of probable medieval date. <28>

Sources

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.