Qualla: Lancaster Priory

Lancaster Priory: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jhsteel, CC BY-SA 3.0. Layer upon layer. A Roman fort stood on this hilltop above the River Lune from the first century AD. A Saxon church may have been here from the sixth century. A monastery, traditions suggest, was founded before the Normans arrived. Then in 1094 - twenty-eight years after Hastings, two years before the First Crusade - Roger de Poitou established a Benedictine priory dedicated to St Mary, as a daughter house of the great Abbey of Saint Martin at Sees in Normandy. Almost a thousand years later, the same hill still has a church on it, and the walls of Lancaster Priory rest on foundations older than England.

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Image: Jhsteel | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lancaster Priory: Sharing the Hill

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Poliphilo, CC0. The priory and Lancaster Castle stand a stone's throw apart on the same outcrop. They have always been neighbours, sometimes uneasy ones. The castle held political prisoners and condemned felons; the priory held services that were sometimes attended by people on their way to be h...

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Image: Poliphilo | CC0

Lancaster Priory: Carved Wood and Cast Iron

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thorvaldsson, CC BY-SA 3.0. The carved oak choir stalls inside the priory date from around 1340 and are reckoned among the finest medieval woodwork in any northern English parish church. Tradition holds they came from Cockersand Abbey on the Lune estuary, salvaged after the abbey's dissolution - though Pevs...

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Image: Thorvaldsson | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lancaster Priory: Towers and Bells

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antiquary, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1743 the parish decided to raise the steeple ten yards higher so the bells could be heard further across the city. The bells were recast for the new tower. By 1753, only a decade later, the rebuilt tower was found to be in danger of collapse, the bells were removed, and Henry ...

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Image: Antiquary | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lancaster Priory: The Churchyard and the View

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Immanuel Giel, CC BY-SA 4.0. The ground under and around the church is a scheduled monument; this is the heart of Roman Lancaster, and the soil holds layers of fort, settlement, Saxon graveyard, and medieval cemetery. Among the listed monuments in the churchyard are a late 18th-century sandstone sundial, res...

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Image: Immanuel Giel | CC BY-SA 4.0