Summary
The site of Hinton Priory, a Carthusian charterhouse which was established in 1227 and dedicated in 1232. It was dissolved in 1539, and a house, also called Hinton Priory, which includes the remains of the priory gatehouse and guesthouse was constructed on the site in the late C16. Hinton is one of only nine medieval Carthusian houses to be built in England and its archaeological remains reflect the unique form of organisation within this religious order.
Reasons for Designation
The site of Hinton Priory, a Carthusian charterhouse established by Ela, Countess of Salisbury that was dedicated in 1232 and dissolved in 1539, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: it is one of only nine medieval Carthusian houses to be built in England and is a significant site that reflects the unique form of organisation within this religious order;
* Survival: despite later interventions, the site survives well as earthworks, buried remains and two remarkably well-preserved monastic buildings. The adaptation of the ponds and the survival of garden earthworks provide evidence for the use of the site since the Dissolution;
* Documentation: it is well-documented in medieval records and has been the subject of archaeological investigations which have enhanced our understanding of the monument;
* Potential: the site is considered to retain further archaeological and environmental evidence which will provide an insight into the layout and occupation of the priory, and this will facilitate further studies about the Carthusian order and its organisation;
* Group value: for its strong historic relationship with the lower house or correrie at nearby Friary, which is also scheduled.
History
The Carthusian order developed following the establishment of a monastery at La Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble, France by Bruno Hartenfaust, a canon and later chancellor of Reims, in 1084. It was a hermitic order that was formalised in 1133 and was part of a widespread phenomenon of individuals and small groups who were seeking solitude for religious devotion and who chose to live as hermits in loosely organised groups. The Carthusians were almost unique amongst the religious orders in favouring a life of total withdrawal from the world to serve God by personal devotion, contemplation and privation, and the monks lived largely in isolation within individual cells or houses. For the monks to pursue their lives of service to God and meditation in peace, essential tasks such as servicing the monastery, preparing food and looking after the land, were undertaken by lay brothers and labourers. In contrast to all other orders, the establishment of separate houses for monks and for lay brothers was a feature of early Carthusian foundations.
King Henry II first brought Carthusians from the Grande Chartreuse to England as part of his penance for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. They settled at Witham in Somerset in 1178. In 1222 a Carthusian priory or charterhouse (a corruption of chartreuse) was established at Hatherop in Gloucestershire by William Longespee, an illegitimate son of Henry II. The foundation did not prosper, and following Logespee's death in 1226 the monks appealed to his widow Ela, Countess of Salisbury, complaining that their current site was unsuitable and the endowments too small, and to ask for a more remote site. The following year the priory was moved to the countess’ manor at Hinton, and was dedicated in 1232 once its buildings had been completed. A separate lower house or correrie for the small community of lay brothers was established some 800m to the east, within a clearing in Friary Wood. The priory was only the second of the nine Carthusian foundations in England. They typically had a small congregation, and their communal buildings were therefore small. At Hinton, the monks’ individual cells, each with its own garden, were arranged around three sides of a square cloister, and various communal buildings such as the small, aisleless church, chapter house and refectory formed the fourth side and stood within an inner court, and all set within a rectangular precinct bounded by a wall. To the west was a group of ponds and related water management features, situated in a field known as Pond Clefe on a map of 1785.
Later Carthusian foundations in England did not have a separate lower house away from the priory, instead the lay brothers resided in quarters within the priory itself. Hinton abandoned its lower house probably in the C14 when the lay brothers, servants and guests were re-sited to accommodation within the priory complex.
During the Dissolution Hinton Priory surrendered to the Crown in March 1539 at which time it housed the Prior, 16 monks and six lay brothers. The priory and its lands were first sold to Sir Walter Hungerford but an oversight by the Augmentation Receiver to maximise profits resulted in many of the buildings being stripped of materials and damaged, and they deteriorated as a result. Sir Walter was beheaded the following year. The priory site was granted to John Bartlett in 1546 and further asset stripping carried out, but it was soon sold to Sir Matthew Colthurst, a Royal Auditor. It was then purchased by Sir Edward Hungerford in 1578. He is attributed with the construction of the present house, also known as Hinton Priory (Grade I), which incorporated the remains of the priory gatehouse or guesthouse. Some of the priory buildings that survived post-dissolution such as the chapter house, refectory and monks’ cells were modified for agricultural purposes. Hinton remained in the ownership of the Hungerford family until the early C18 when it was sold to Walter Robinson whose family retained it for over two centuries. An orchard was planted on the Great Cloister, certainly before 1785 and is depicted on a map of this date. This map also shows a possible rabbit warren, marked as ‘Conygar’, to the north-east of the site of the priory church. During the early C19, the owner, Captain Symonds, created landscaped gardens around the house, including a walled garden on the site of the Great Cloister which was described in 1849 as the ‘New Garden’. He was also responsible for re-locating the farm to a site, now Abbey Farm, to the west.
The priory is well documented in many contemporary sources and has been the subject of archaeological investigations, including limited excavation in the 1950s (Fletcher, see Sources), and geophysical and earthwork surveys in the 1990s (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME)). The excavation focussed mostly on the central part of the site, namely the church and the cloister, uncovering evidence for some of the individual cells and their walled gardens.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The monument includes the earthwork, standing and buried remains of Hinton Priory, a Carthusian charterhouse or priory and associated water management features. The priory at Hinton was founded in 1227 and dedicated in 1232. It was dissolved in 1539. It is situated approximately 1km north-east of the village of Hinton Charterhouse and 1km west of the River Frome. Post-dissolution, a house (Grade I), also called Hinton Priory which incorporated the remains of the priory’s C15 gatehouse and guesthouse was built in the north-west part of the site and some of the priory buildings were modified for agricultural purposes. A landscaped garden was established on parts of the site in the early C19.
DESCRIPTION
The core of the charterhouse lies within a rectangular precinct, approximately 3ha in area, that was defined by a boundary wall. The course of the wall is visible in places as a low bank and an intermittent external ditch. Sections of the wall were excavated in the mid-C20 and found to be some 0.8m wide. A gatehouse (incorporated into Hinton Priory) close to the north-west corner of the precinct led into a court, with the Great Cloister, around which the monks' cells and gardens were arranged, to the south. The communal buildings included the church, chapter house and refectory, and the geophysical survey identified further wall lines which may be the buried remains of other structures. A linear boundary orientated west-east appears to have divided the court into two. The church, some 65m south-east of the present house, was found to be a five-bay building that lacked aisles or transepts. Buttresses defined the bays and each bay originally had a long, narrow lancet window. The building had a groin-vaulted roof. The only above ground evidence for the church are a trefoil-headed recess that is probably a piscina or a sidile (a stone seat to the side of an altar), and a moulded shaft and springer for a rib vault. These survive in the north wall of the adjacent chapter house which also formed part of the south wall of the church.
The chapter house (also listed at Grade I) on the south side of the church is one of two priory buildings that survive as standing structures. It is a tall, L-shaped structure, built of stone rubble with freestone dressings and a stone slate roof. The entrance in the west elevation has a chamfered, pointed-arched doorway. The chapter house itself and probably the sacristy were located on the ground floor, and a library occupied some of the first floor. Parts of the upper floors were converted to a dovecote, probably post-dissolution, when stone nest boxes were added. The room that served as the chapter house has a moulded piscina, an aumbry and traces of a stone altar. The rib vaulted ceiling is carried on corbelled-out shafts with moulded and stiff leaf capitals. A barrel-vaulted passage that leads to the probable sacristy and a stone newel stair to the upper floors, previously also provided access between the chapter house and the church. The former refectory (also listed at Grade I) to the west is a rectangular stone building with a C20 tiled roof covering and coped raised verges. It has a vaulted undercroft and a large room or former hall above, accessed from an external stone stair. The openings in the north, west and east walls include chamfered doorways, some are blocked, lancets and square-headed windows. The south elevation is buttressed and has a shouldered doorway and two windows, one of two pointed-arched lights, on the ground floor, a stringcourse with projecting corbels below, and on the upper floor is another doorway, a blocked window and inserted loft doors. Internally, the ground floor has quadripartite vaults with chamfered ribs and is divided into two rooms. The west room has a fireplace with stone hood and moulded jambs with caps. The king-post roof is C19. An early-C19 stables and coach house (Grade II) to the north of the refectory and some garden walls incorporate some medieval fragments.
The chapter house and the refectory formed the north side of the Great Cloister which measured some 70m square, it is presently largely situated within a walled garden. The cloister walk, approximately 6m wide, had a tiled and stone slab floor and a tiled pentice roof. The corbels evident on the south walls of both the chapter house and the refectory would have supported adjacent sections of the cloister walk roof. The geophysics survey identified the buried remains of gravel paths and possible drains within the cloister, although they may relate to a post-medieval phase. Evidence for a passage, possibly used by the lay brothers, was also identified at the north-east corner. The investigations uncovered evidence for the individual monks’ cells and their small walled courtyard gardens. Fifteen cells have been identified along the west, south and east sides of the cloister, including one to the north-west of the refectory. Each cell was 9.6m square, comprising a square room and an L-shaped room around two sides, along with a uniform pattern of an entrance from the cloister walk, a hearth and a doorway to the monk’s garden. Stone-lined conduits and drains, which survive as buried features, supplied water to and from the priory buildings, including the cells and refectory, possibly from a spring to the north-west.
In the eastern part of the site is a hollow way running north-south and a series of building platforms (Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England) which may relate to such things as workshop areas and stores that would have been located close to, but outside of the main priory complex, and possibly used by the lay brothers. A sub-rectangular depression may be a former pond. Further to the south-west, and south of the Great Cloister are a group of irregular depressions that are probably former stone quarries. Several trackways are also visible in this area and may relate to quarrying activities.
To the west, separated from the main part of the priory by an early-C19 stone-lined ha-ha on the approximate line of the precinct boundary, is a group of ponds, leats and overflow channels which survive as substantial earthworks. They are surrounded to the west, north and south by a bank and external ditch which define a rectangular enclosure. The ponds are likely to be medieval in origin and served the priory, but they were later adapted or recut as ornamental features. Two of the ponds have stone revetment walls along their east sides which may date from this later phase. To the north of the ponds are two linear banks, channels and later drainage ditches. To the west of the ponds is a dispersed group of circular and oval mounds. These earthworks have been interpreted (RCHME) as tree mounds or the pillow mounds of a warren. By 1785 it seems that there was a rabbit warren to the east of the former priory buildings, and it is possible that these earthworks may, therefore, be the remains of landscape features associated with the post-dissolution house. Those mounds situated within the rectangular enclosure have a close spatial and historic relationship with the earlier ponds and are included in the scheduling.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The site consists of a roughly rectangular-shaped area of some 455m approximately west-east by up to 205m north to south formed of the known extent of the priory site and the rectangular enclosure to the west. A margin of 2m for the support and protection of the monument is added to the west, north and south boundaries of the scheduled area, while the A36 defines the eastern extent of the monument. At the present time there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate the survival of nationally important remains to the west of the rectangular enclosure and it is not possible to justify including this area in the scheduling.
EXCLUSIONS
The Grade I listed house called Hinton Priory; the Grade II listed stables and coach-house, single-storey outbuilding and the wall enclosing the stable yard; the former pigsties; the stone and timber storage building; greenhouses, potting sheds, compost bins and other garden structures, garden walls, railings and fencing, the surfaces of all paths, courtyards and driveways, and the Grade II listed tunnel portal and flanking walls on the west side of the A36 are excluded from the scheduling, but the ground beneath these features is, however, included.
