Bridgend Priory was a monastic house in

Horbling __NOTOC__ Horbling is a village and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It lies on the B1177, south-east of Sleaford, north-east of Grantham and north of Billingborough. Village population recorded in the ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

, England. The priory was founded around 1199 by Godwin the Rich of

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, a benefactor to the

Gilbertine Order The Gilbertine Order of Canons Regular was founded around 1130 by Gilbert of Sempringham, Saint Gilbert in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, where Gilbert was the parish priest. It was the only completely England, English religious order and came to an ...

Sempringham Priory Sempringham Priory was a priory in Lincolnshire, England, located in the medieval hamlet of Sempringham, to the northwest of Pointon. Today, all that remains of the priory is a marking on the ground where the walls stood and a square, which are i ...

. At Bridgend he gave the chapel of Saint Saviour and lands and

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

s for the maintenance of a house for canons, and bound them to keep in repair the causeway through the fens called Holland Bridge and the bridges over it as far as the dike near Donington, which the canons found a heavy burden, and often complaints were made about the state of repair. In 1333 the prior appeared before

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and claimed their property was barely enough for the maintenance of the canons, and the repair of the causeway was only a secondary concern to them. It is unlikely that there were ever more than three or four canons and a few lay brothers at this priory. In 1356 Edward III granted the right of holding a weekly market in Bridgend and of a yearly fair on the Feast of

Saint Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurr ...

, and a year later granted another fair on the Feast of

Saint Luke Luke the Evangelist (Latin: '' Lucas''; grc, Λουκᾶς, '' Loukâs''; he, לוקאס, ''Lūqās''; arc, /ܠܘܩܐ לוקא, ''Lūqā’; Ge'ez: ሉቃስ'') is one of the Four Evangelists—the four traditionally ascribed authors of t ...

. In February 1445 a fire devastated the church and monastic buildings, and Alnwick

Bishop of Lincoln The Bishop of Lincoln is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury. The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and ...

issued an indulgence of forty days to all who should contribute before

Michaelmas Michaelmas ( ; also known as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the Feast of the Archangels, or the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels) is a Christian festival observed in some Western liturgical calendars on 29 September, a ...

to the relief of the priory. At the

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the house had become a cell of Sempringham, and was surrendered as part of the possessions of it in September 1538. Stones from the priory were used to build nearby Priory Farm.

References

Monasteries in Lincolnshire 1538 disestablishments in England 1199 establishments in England Christian monasteries established in the 12th century {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub