The Convent, or Oratory of Burton, or Barton, having been dissolved long before the general suppression of monastic foundations, escaped the notice of William Dugdale, John Speed, Thomas Tanner, and other writers on religious houses, so that its existence had nearly sunk into oblivion.
Sir John Oglander mentions it in his manuscript Memoirs, but his information appears to have been merely traditional.
Its history is however preserved in the register of John of Pontoise, Bishop of Winchester, wherein the statutes of the house are confirmed by an instrument, in which the bishop affirms he had seen the charters of John de Insula, Rector of Shalfleet, and of Thomas de Winton, Rector of Godshill, founders of the Oratory of the Holy Trinity of Burton, for the ordering and governing the said Oratory made, and in full force, under the seals of the founders, as follows: I.
That the archpriest shall be chosen by the chaplains there residing, who shall present him to the bishop within twenty days after any vacancy shall happen.
Their habit shall be of one colour, either black or blue; they shall be clothed fallio Hiberniemfi, de nigra bor.ftn cum pileo.
Thomas de Winton, and John de Insula, clerks, grant to John Bishop of Winchester, and his successors, the patronage of their Oratory at Burton, in the parish of Whippingham, that he might become a protector and a defender of them, the archpriest, and his fellow chaplains.
The archpriest being suspended by the bishop, the dean of the island was ordered to take charge of his Oratory in the house at Burton.
The site and demesnes of the Oratory are still held under a lease from the Warden and Fellows of Winchester College; and part of the old building is yet standing.