Monument record 10319 - St Mary's Priory (Benedictine Nunnery)

The foundation charter of St Mary's Benedictine Nunnery (alternately called St Mary’s Priory) dated to c 1150, when Ranulph II granted some crofts from his demesne to the Benedictine Nuns of Chester, who promptly began building conventual buildings and a church dedicated to St Mary on the site. In its early days, the community was linked with nunnery founded at Clerkenwell in Middlesex, but this connection lapsed by the early thirteenth century. Ranulph II freed nuns from all tolls; they had their own court and the right to fish in Dee. The Earl's men also granted them land in Christleton, Handbridge, Chester, Calverton, Go borne, Nantwich and Waverton and grants of rents. Also granted Church of Over, Advowson of Budworth, Manor of Wallerscote in Delamere and the Church of Sutterby, Lincolnshire. The nuns also had alms of 40s per annum from the Earls of Chester in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a quarter of the tithes of expenses of royal household when in Chester. Despite these advantages, the house experienced financial difficulties. In 1331, revenues were insufficient to support their members and in 1388, Richard II granted two additional Welsh churches which added to their income. The house was regularly exempted from tax owing to poverty. From 1496 to the Dissolution just before 1540, there were only 12 to14 nuns and novices living at the nunnery, and most of its property had been let to small tenants. In 1542, the site of the nunnery and all its buildings were granted to the Brereton family, from when it continued as their occasional residence until siege of Chester 1645, when it was irreversibly damaged. The site and ruins then passed to the Booths of Mottram St Andrew 1688, who then sold it to Edward Wrench of Chester 1766. It was acquired by County Justices 1806 to extend new Shire Hall entrance, and later create a more appropriate approach for the Harrison buildings. Engraving by Buck shows ruins. In 1816, one archway of the original nunnery, possibly from the church building, survived, but it was moved at least twice and now stands in Grosvenor Park. While still the Benedictine Nunnery of St Mary’s, the complex included the following elements: the boundaries of the precinct of St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery appears to have been formed by the Castle ditch on the southern side, St Nicholas St. on the east, the rear wall of the properties on Black Friar’s Lane to the north and the top of the slope down to the Roodee on the west. The church lay at centre of the St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery complex, and information on its layout is available both from documentary sources and from archaeological excavations carried out in the 1960s prior to the construction of a new police headquarters building. The building was divided longitudinally by an arcade of four arches, terminating at the western wall in an engaged pier, with a buttress on the outer face of the wall. The cloisters of St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery occupied their traditional site on the southern side of the nave of the church Direct evidence for the cemetery belonging to St Mary’s Benedictine Nunnery comes from two locations within the Priory complex; below the church floor, and to the southeast of the Priory buildings, in what would have been the south-eastern part of the precinct, while the Holme plan shows the area to the east of the church and cloister buildings and south of the lane as a cemetery. Parts of buildings belonging to an outer court, in addition to a gate and a laneway leading from it into the complex, have also been found. Following the Dissolution it was used as a private residence until demolished and robbed of its stone.