Bodmin's Priory and Friary

Welcome to the page for Bodmin College's Year 7 students doing their History homework on what happened to Bodmin's Priory and Friary. Read the details below and then click on the Photo Gallery button and view the pictures...

St Petroc, a Welsh prince, who trained in Ireland, took over the running of the early Christian community which had been established in Bodmin and made it the "Abode of the Monks". Bodmin was soon recognised as the main religious centre in the west. Petroc established the Priory and died in AD 564.

There were three religious communities in Bodmin in the Middle Ages. There was the Priory run by Augustinian monks, the Friary run by Franciscan monks and the town's church - St Petroc's.

After passing the Act of Supremacy in 1534 making himself head of the new Church of England, Henry VIII began to close down the monastries. His changes were to alter the face of Bodmin. Both the Priory and the Friary were closed down. Today all that are left are a few scattered ruins. The best way to see these is to go for a walk around the centre of the town, but for those of you unable to do that our Photo Gallery will help show you what is there. If you click on the pictures in the gallery you will get an enlarged picture and a full description and explanation of the picture.

THE PRIORY

SITES TO VISIT
• The Priory remains next to Priory House on Priory Road (see photo on right)
• The Priory remains next to the path to the right of the Narissa Hall in Priory Park
• The Priory Fish Pond in Priory Park(see photo on left)
• The odd carved bricks found in walls and buildings around Bodmin. E.g.: in Pool Street in the wall on the corner with Barry Lane opposite to the White Hart Pub; in St Nicholas Street in the front garden wall (pavement side) of St Petroc’s Residential Home.
• The pillar at the bottom of Honey Street

THE FRIARY

SITES TO VISIT
• The carved stonework in Arnold’s Passage (opposite the mural painted by students from our College)
• Stonework in the garden and in the arch visible from the pavement at St Nicholas House, also known as the Pencaran Club, in St Nicholas Street, opposite the Bodmin General Station.
• The pillar in the grounds of St Petroc’s Church by the west front (just up the steps from Church Square)

What happened to the Priory?

Prior Thomas Wandsworth and his monks surrendered the Priory and its possessions worth £289 a year on 27 February 1538 or 1539. The king's agent, John Tregous, sold the Priory bells to Lanivet church for £36 13s 4d on 27 July 1539. The people of Bodmin soon began to demolish the Priory church and stones from it can still be seen in odd places around the town. The remaining habitable buildings went to a man called Thomas Sternhold. In 1768 some of the site was cleared for the building of Priory House which is now the Social Services offices.

What happened to the Friary?

The 5 and a half acres of the Friary site was bought up by people in the town in 1534 to 1539. The church survived and was used as a cobbler's shop, an inn, a ballroom, a grammar school, a drill hall, a market and a court over the years. Most of the site was cleared in 1836 to make way for the building of the Shire Hall. The rest was cleared in 1891 to allow the building of the Public Rooms. A number of skeletons were found from the Friary graveyard and were reburied.

This photo shows a skeleton uncovered in 1985 in the grounds of Priory House from the Priory Burial Site. This was probably one of the monks who lived at the Priory.