Gatehouse to Carmelite Friary, Friar's Lane, Burnham Norton, Norfolk

Photograph taken 03 June 2001 © Ian Shapeero. Source Historic England Archive ref: 416549

This 14th century gatehouse was the entrance to a Carmelite Friary. The friary was the earliest Carmelite house to be established in Norfolk. It was also the first Carmelite house to be established after their expulsion from Mount Carmel in Sinai, Egypt in 1238. It was founded in 1242 by Ralph Hempnale and William Calethorpe on a site at Bradmer, east of Burnham Norton village. It was moved to its present site in 1252. The friary was enlarged in 1298, and again in 1353. The friary was dissolved in 1538 and the land was eventually sold in 1544 to Lady Anne Calthorpe. It later passed to the local branch of the Pepys family, relatives of the diarist Samuel Pepys.

Location

Norfolk Burnham Norton

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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Gatehouse to Carmelite Friary, Friar's Lane, Burnham Norton, Norfolk

Location

Period

Themes

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