Ansty Preceptory was a medieval monastic house in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England, founded by the

Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...

History

A manor at Ansty was granted to the Knights Hospitallers by Walter De Turberville in 1210–1211. At that time Ansty would have been one of only a handful of places where the holy observances were still celebrated, since the Knights Hospitallers, who answered directly to Rome, were excluded from

Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 J ...

's interdict (1208–1214). The Hospitallers founded a

preceptory A preceptor (from Latin, "''praecepto''") is a teacher responsible for upholding a ''precept'', meaning a certain law or tradition. Buddhist monastic orders Senior Buddhist monks can become the preceptors for newly ordained monks. In the Buddhi ...

in the parish. By 1275 they had property in

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

, and they later had lands in the adjacent parish of

Swallowcliffe Swallowcliffe is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about southeast of Tisbury and west of Salisbury. The village lies about half a mile north of the A30 Shaftesbury- Wilton road which crosses the parish. Geography S ...

, undertaking in 1333 to provide a chaplain for the church there. Little is known of the later history of the preceptory. In 1540–1541, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the properties were granted to John Zouche. Queen Mary after her accession in 1553 restored the order in England and returned all its property, including that of the preceptory of Ansty; however, it was suppressed during the reign of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

Legacy

The remains of the preceptory and fishpond are in the grounds of Manor Farm, Ansty.

Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist * Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo * David Pevsner, American actor, singer, da ...

suggests that the 16th-century Manor House (formerly Manor Farmhouse) has traces of the main building. The preceptory's 16th-century guest house, at the roadside near the church, survived until 1927 when it was damaged in a fire; it is now used as a workshop. The

William Salt Library The William Salt Library is a library and archive, in Stafford, Staffordshire, England. Supported by Staffordshire County Council, it is a registered charity, administered by an independent trust in conjunction with the Staffordshire & Stoke-on ...

, Stafford, holds an 1817 watercolour of the building by John Buckler titled 'Monastic Remains at Ansty'.

References

Monasteries in Wiltshire Preceptories of the Knights Hospitaller in England 10th-century religious buildings and structures 10th-century establishments in England {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub