Harrowgate Priory

The oldest and only uninterrupted institution of the March: six and twenty brothers under a prior holding the town church, a school, an infirmary, the great tithes of eleven parishes and the principal interest in Wychwood. It alone can consecrate ground, license priests, bless and bury, conducts visitations of the parishes, and keeps the only archive in the county, including the Black Thorn roll.

The religious house at Harrowgate that is the march's chief Church institution, largest landowner and largest single employer of armed men. It owns Wychwood and takes two thirds of the timber value, keeps the visitation, tithe and parish books and the only collected archive in the march, grants leave to enter ruins on owned or consecrated ground, and runs the infirmary.

Named with it

• Prior Michael Stainforth (present prior
• The Harrowgate Visitation Book, 4621)
• Sub-Prior Walter Threshfield (keeps and lends the library
• first to read the visitation books in order)
• Prior Gilbert Aldwark · letters to the bishop, 4611
• Prior Anselm Wadding · The Mereton Visitation Book, 4621
• Prior Osbert Gell · quoted, 4617
• Brother Osbert Chevening · collected accounts of the north wood
• Brother Gilbert Salwick · searched for the title to the no-cut belts
• Prior Michael Stainforth · prior of Harrowgate
• Prior Ralph Mainwaring (prior
• author of the Visitation Returns for the Northern Deaneries)
• Sub-Prior Walter Threshfield (sub-prior
• grants leave to enter ruins, reads the visitation books)
• Sacrist Edmund Pickhill · sacrist of Harrowgate
• Brother Godric Semer · librarian of Harrowgate

Ties

• holds the principal interest in Wychwood and draws over half its income from the wood
• instructed the Woodmote's verderers to value the no-cut belts
• attends but does not preside at the Mereton Reed Sessions
• exorcisms require the bishop's leave, which comes through the priory
• resists the Collegium's proposal to release the northern reed cuts
• sends bread daily to Harrowgate Gaol and takes some of its unaccountable prisoners into the infirmary
• its quiet view of the districts contrasts with Harrowgate Corporation's
• owns and governs Wychwood, providing the woodmote court and its officers
• applications for the bishop's faculty pass through it to the diocese

At the table

The library is freely lent on application to the sub-prior, and companies are advised to go there first and be candid. The infirmary never turns away a patient but keeps four sealed rooms behind the main ward that the brothers will not discuss. Tithe is always paid because the rites depend on it. Its recent valuation of the Wychwood no-cut belts, amid a building fund it cannot afford, has alarmed the wood. It holds that such families as the fell settlements are to be buried like any other household. Pays modestly but promptly and on the day; it hires escort for the tithe carriage, timber convoys and travelling brothers, and a priory contract is the best reference in the march. Its brothers are few and elderly (a house of six). The sub-prior asks every party three questions, the third being who will answer if it does not come out, and he wants anything bearing writing. It holds two deep-ruin objects, four accounts and copies of two practitioners' books, and publishes none of its own speculation. Brothers hold three positions on the unlicensed practitioners, and the priory declines further business as its only penalty. It has lent a relic to Ketton Bar and turns a blind eye to Stang Head's serjeant reading the office.