Former Village Reading Room, Witham Friary, Somerset

Photograph taken 10 August 2001 © Brendan Balhetchet LRPS. Source Historic England Archive ref: 266936

This building has had many uses over the centuries. It was originally part of a Carthusian Priory founded in 1182 by Henry II. It is reputed to be the first Carthusian house in England and one of only nine Carthusian Houses. The priory was dissolved in 1539 when it was valued at £227. It has since been a dovecote and village reading room. It was restored in 1900 for the Duke of Somerset.

Location

Somerset Witham Friary

Period

Medieval (Middle Ages) (1066 - 1484)

Themes

A nunnery was first documented here in 603. A monastery was founded during the abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705). It became Benedictine in the reign of Edgar (959–975) and remained so until dissolved in 1539. The final Abbey Church was built circa 1160-70 and had 13th/14th and 15th century additions. The 431 feet (131 m) tall spire, collapsed in a storm around 1500. The west tower fell around 1550. As a result of these two collapses, less than half of the original building stands today. The abbey was closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII. It was sold, with all its lands, to William Stumpe, a rich merchant. He gave the abbey church to the town for continuing use as a parish church, and filled the abbey buildings with twenty looms for his cloth-weaving enterprise.
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Former Village Reading Room, Witham Friary, Somerset

Location

Period

Themes

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