Westwood Priory (priory of St. Mary) was a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of ...

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

nuns founded in 1153, near

Droitwich Droitwich Spa (often abbreviated to Droitwich ) is an historic spa town in the Wychavon district in northern Worcestershire, England, on the River Salwarpe. It is located approximately south-west of Birmingham and north-east of Worcester. The ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

, England. It was a daughter house of

Fontevraud Abbey The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud or Fontevrault (in French: ''abbaye de Fontevraud'') was a monastery in the village of Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, near Chinon, in the former French duchy of Anjou. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preache ...

, seized by the English crown in 1537 during the Dissolution of the monasteries.

History

Eustachia de Say and her son Osbert FitzHugh gave the church located at Westwood to

, in the Loire valley, where

Henry II of England Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (french: link=no, Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress, or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189, and as such, was the first Angevin king ...

, his wife Queen

Eleanor of Aquitaine Eleanor ( – 1 April 1204; french: Aliénor d'Aquitaine, ) was Queen of France from 1137 to 1152 as the wife of King Louis VII, Queen of England from 1154 to 1189 as the wife of King Henry II, and Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right from 1 ...

and their son Richard I (the Lionheart) are buried. Soon afterwards, a small priory was erected at Westwood, dedicated to the Blessed

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

, for six

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

nuns. Over the centuries the convent grew until it ultimately numbered eighteen sisters. A group from Westwood moved to

Amesbury Priory Amesbury Priory was a Benedictine monastery at Amesbury in Wiltshire, England, belonging to the Order of Fontevraud. It was founded in 1177 to replace the earlier Amesbury Abbey, a Saxon foundation established about the year 979. The Anglo-Norma ...

subsequent to its being refounded in 1177. In 1460, Elizabeth Norton is named as prioress of Westwode, Worcs, in a legal dispute. The last prioress, Joyce Acton, received at the

dissolution Dissolution may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books * ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers * ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music * Dissolution, in mu ...

an annual pension of ten pounds, on 11 March 1537. After the dissolution Henry VIII granted Westwood, with its demesne lands, to Sir John PakingtonThomas Eaton, ''A Concise History and Description of the City and Cathedral of Worcester'', 1829, p. 247. and in the reign of Elizabeth Westwood House was built on the property as a banqueting house. When the Pakington family seat in the adjacent village of

Hampton Lovett Hampton Lovett is a village and civil parish in the Wychavon district of the county of Worcestershire, England. It is just north of Droitwich. The church of St. Mary and All Saints is noted for its Norman features. English Heritage lists the c ...

was burnt down during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

they moved to Westwood.

Notes

External links

British History Online: The Priory of Westwood
Monasteries in Worcestershire Benedictine nunneries in England 1153 establishments in England 1537 disestablishments in England Christian monasteries established in the 12th century 12th-century establishments in England {{UK-Christian-monastery-stub