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Summary

Site of house of Crutched Friars, probably begun before 1393 and dissolved in 1538

Other Statuses and Cross-References

• Berkshire SMR No. (pre 2000): 03465.03.000
  
• National Monuments Record No.: SU 46 NE 44
  SU 4663 6861

Monument Type(s):

• FRIARY OF CRUTCHED FRIARS (14th century to 16th century - 1301 AD? to 1539 AD)

Full Description

SITE OF HOUSE OF CRUTCHED FRIARS, FOUNDED 14TH CENT? SUPPRESSED 1538 WHEN IT WAS STATED TO BE TRINITARIAN. ATTACHED CHAPEL WAS DESTROYED IN CIVIL WAR. NV QUINELL (1963) REPORTED NO RE-USED MATERIAL IN PRESENT BUILDING, AND NO EVIDENCE FOR THE PRECISE SITES OF FRIARY OR CHAPEL.

There is some confusion over both the monastic allegiance and date of origin of Donnington Priory (or Friary). Morris, in his history of Donnington <4>, believes that the Priory was built by by Sir Richard Abberbury in 1393, and was one of 12 houses of the Maturines, or Friars of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Order of Ingham, after the chief house in Norfolk. However, the order he describes is Trinitarians, not the Crutched Friars. Knowles and Hadcock in their survey of religious houses <8> put Donnington into the latter group, with the alternative names of Fratres Cruciferi, or Friars of the Holy Cross (a lesser order of friars, officially recognised in 1169 but not accepted by many English bishops and monks). Furthermore, they suggest that the Trinitarian label (only documented at the time of suppression) may have been a ruse in order to gain pensions. Certain lands in Donnington were granted to the Crutched Friars of London in 1376 in order that they might find two chaplains to serve the chapel here. It seems that a small priory may have been established before Sir Abberbury's Hospital was founded in 1393, because one of the laws for the regulations of the almshouses decrees that the Minister and his brethren must go every day to hear Mass at the chapel of the 'neighbouring Friary'. The Priory was distinct from the Hospital on the other side of the Oxford Road.

The first documented reference to the house of the Crutched Friars at Donnington occurs in 1404, and there is a cast of an imperfect impression of a 15th century seal of this priory in the British Museum <9>. In 1500 there is a record of the minister of the Hospital being buried in the new chapel of Jesus on the south side of the church of the Friars of the Holy Cross in Donnington. Further information about this small house is very meagre until Dissolution; Henry White, Minister of the House of Friars and 'an extreme aged man' surrendered to John London on 30th November 1538 (or 1539?), having been granted his pension <9>. The Priory was suppressed and its revenues confiscated, but it does not seems to have been very wealthy: London wrote to Thomas Cromwell about "the Crowche Fryers besyd Newberye" where the plate was 'no more than a poor chalice'.

A succession of private owners took on the property - Queen Elizabeth I owned and leased it in the late 16th century. After the Civil War, when the house was deserted by its royalist owners, the Cowslades became possessors. They erected the present building in 1655 <4>. The auction house Dreweatt Neate obtained the house in 1978, and altered and extended the buildings. There is no apparent sign of monastic remains in the landscaped gardens and the Ordnance Survey Field Investigator in the 1960s considered that there was no re-used material in the house <11>. The chapel seems to have been completely destroyed during the Civil War <8><9>.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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