St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester
Encyclopedia
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
, and her husband Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia, in the 890s.
St Peter's Abbey had been founded in Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
about 679 by Osric, ruler of the Hwicce, and at the end of the ninth century Æthelflæd and Æthelred founded a new minster to replace it, also initially dedicated to St Peter. In 909 a combined West Saxon and Mercian raid into Danish territory resulted in the translation of the bones of St Oswald
Oswald of Northumbria
Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is now venerated as a Christian saint.Oswald was the son of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and came to rule after spending a period in exile; after defeating the British ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald brought the two Northumbrian kingdoms of...
to the new church from Bardney Abbey
Bardney Abbey
Bardney Abbey in Lincolnshire, England, was a Benedictine monastery founded in 697 by King Æthelred of Mercia, who was to become the first abbot. The monastery is supposed to have been destroyed during a Danish raid in 869...
in Lincolnshire, and St Peter's was re-named St Oswald's in his honour.
The Priory, founded when Gloucester was an important new burh
Burh
A Burh is an Old English name for a fortified town or other defended site, sometimes centred upon a hill fort though always intended as a place of permanent settlement, its origin was in military defence; "it represented only a stage, though a vitally important one, in the evolution of the...
, at first enjoyed royal favour, and both Æthelflæd and Æthelred were buried there, but it soon declined into obscurity. In 1089 Serlo, the new Norman abbot of Gloucester, began an ambitious new church to replace the old minster, and St Oswald's, its emoluments much reduced, became a minor house of Augustinian canons. The monastery was suppressed in 1536, and became the parish church of St Catherine, but this was destroyed in a Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
siege in 1643.
It is a Grade I listed building, located at Priory Road, Gloucester GL1 2RF.
Items from the priory are in Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery
Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery
Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery in Brunswick Road is the main museum in the City of Gloucester. It has recently been extensively renovated following a large National Heritage Lottery Fund grant and it reopened on Gloucester Day, 3 September 2011....
.
Further reading
- "The Roman Tilery at St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester" by Carolyn HeighwayCarolyn M. HeighwayCarolyn Mary Heighway MA FSA is an Archaeological Consultant to Gloucester Cathedral and the owner, with her husband Michael, of Past Historic, a company which specialises in the design and production of archaeological books and journals as well as exhibitions...
, Et al. in Britannia, Vol. 13 (1982), pp. 25-77.