More information : (SP 18457867) Nunnery (GT) (Site of) (1)
Priory of Benedictine Nuns founded by Ketelberne de Langdon between 1149 and 1161 at a place later known as Heanwood or Henwood. In the 14th c. there were 15 nuns but the Black Death left only 3 of them and at the Dissolution there were only six nuns with the prioress and an aged former prioress. In 1540 the site and the priory possessions were sold to John Higford by the crown for #207. 5s. 0d. (2)
Listed. (Main reference - Authy 2). The founding date however is given as 1154-61. Dissolved. 1536. (3)
Henwood Hall which stood on the site of Henwood Priory was pulled down in 1824 but a small modern farmhouse nearby (also called Henwood Hall - ref. Authy 1) has a number of stones from the nunnery built into the garden walls. Several lines of low banks and depressions in the fields east of the farm probably indicate the actual conventual site." (4)
"All that remains to identify the site of the Nunnery of Henwood is a number of grass-ground mounds, on the elevated portion of a field contiguous to the farmhouse called Henwood Hall; a large walnut tree marks the spot. The foundations have been dug out, and these elevations are, doubtless, formed of the rubbish left. Indications of a moat, on the east and north, remaining part of it, on the latter, being banked up to form a pond". (5)
Small-scale excavation carried out at Henwood Priory, 1950, by R. B. Wilson & E.S. Sapcote. "Trenches dug across the 'moat' produced no evidence of building and the depressions may have marked an area of garden or the removal of an outbuilding. A trench dug on the site of an old walnut tree... revealed at comparatively shallow depth a stone corner buttress of Norman design. This trench was extended to reveal thick walls with a second buttress 35' away from the first, and return walls were followed for some distance. The general character of the walling suggested that the remains constituted the end of a large building which pointed due east, possibly the priory church. To support this theory medieval encaustic tiles and leaded glazing containing stained glass was found in this trench. The site was filled in during 1951..." (6)
Slight unsurveyable traces of possible building foundations exist at the published site. There is no surface evidence of a moat but, as stated, there are many architectural fragments rebuilt into the walling of Henwood Hall. (7)
Documentary evidence for a moat exists in the local tithe map (a) which shows the north and east waterfilled arms of a moat within the field in question which is titled 'Old Moat Home and Close.' (8) |