History

A house of Dominican

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 friars was founded in Guildford by Queen Eleanor of Provence

Eleanor of Provence

Eleanor of Provence was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Henry III of England from 1236 until his death in 1272....

, at some time after the death of her husband Henry III

Henry III of England

Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...

. The friary was on the east bank of the river, north of the current High Street in Guildford at the end of the present Friary Street, In 1275 on 6th March, Edward I

Edward I of England

Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...

 granted the Dominican friars a road leading from Guildford to the royal park opposite, across the river to be enclosed for enlarging their area. Later, Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 had a hunting lodge built within the precincts of this enlarged area. However, he later retained the priory in his own lands, and converted the friary house into a dwelling as an occasional royal resort.

The friary was dissolved on 10th October 1538 but the house remained standing until 1606 when it was partly pulled down on the instruction of Sir George More

George More

Sir George More was an English courtier and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1584 and 1625.More was the son of Sir William More of Loseley Park, Surrey...

, who carried away the materials by leave of George Austen, possibly to build the wing which Sir George added to Loseley Park

Loseley Park

Loseley Park is a historic manor house situated outside Guildford in Surrey, England near Compton. The estate was acquired by the direct ancestors of the current owners, the More-Molyneux, at the beginning of the 16th century....

. In 1630 the site was granted in fee simple to the Earl of Annandale, and on this site he had a new house built by Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...

. This property was eventually changed into barracks in 1794, and pulled down in 1818.

The site of the friary later was built over and occupied by the Friary Brewery and latterly Guildford's Friary Shopping Centre.

Friary of Crutched Friars

Before the shopping centre was built, the site of the Friary was excavated in 1974 and 1978. During these excavations, traces of an earlier building were found under the Dominican building. This building had pottery dating after 1250. It has been suggested that this was the House of the Friars de Ordine Martyrum at Guildford. Also referred to as the 'Fratres Ordinis S Morise de Ordine Cruciferorum', this was a small and short-lived order, who came to Britain in 1244. In 1260 they were given permission to inhabit a piece of land they had acquired at Guildford. The Friars de Ordine Martyrum was dissolved by the Council of Lyons

Second Council of Lyon

The Second Council of Lyon was the fourteenth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, convoked on 31 March 1272 and convened in Lyon, France, in 1274. Pope Gregory X presided over the council, called to act on a pledge by Byzantine emperor Michael VIII to reunite the Eastern church with the West...

 in 1274, along with a number of the smaller orders including the Friars of the Sack and the Pied Friars. The excavations revealing a structure built after 1250 but which must have ceased to exist before 1275, along with the documentary evidence for the presence of the Friars de Ordine Martyrum supports the suggestion that this was the original Friary. The Friars de Ordine Martyrum, were one of a number of small orders that have been losely grouped under the umbrella of the Crutched Friars or Crossed Friars, all of whom followed the Augustinian

Augustinians

The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

 tradition, and who came to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in the 13th century from Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

There has also been the suggestion of a later House of Crutched Friars in Guildford associated with the Spital, or St. Thomas's Hospital, that once stood in the angle between the Epsom and London roads in Guildford. However, the only authority for the existence of a house of crutched friars at Guildford is Speed's “History of Great Britaine” in 1611. But no other writer mentions this group.