Dover College, a private boarding school, occupies the land between the station and Effingham Street and has rescued some of the medieval buildings for use by its pupils.

Taking their existing rights and privileges with them, these canons were transferred to a new small church dedicated to St Martin in the land now occupied by Market Square towards the end of the 7th century, by King Wihtred in fulfilment of a vow to that saint.

The original small church at Market Square was granted to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux upon the Norman Conquest.

The then Archbishop of Canterbury, William de Corbeil, wanted to bring an end to this and extend his influence to Dover.

Repaired and extended in 1231 after much damage in a fire of 1201, it was pillaged by the French in a raid in August 1295, during which a monk called Thomas de la Hale was murdered.

It was probably three times as long as St. Mary's Church in Dover, with a general plan perhaps comparable to Repton Priory, or to the Cistercian Stanley Abbey[1] in Wiltshire.

Probably some active, entrepreneurial men who were later to become very influential in the life of the town first came to Dover with the express purpose of exploiting the lands and tithes of this and other suppressed religious houses of the area.

Illustrations from the 18th and early 19th centuries of the Priory Farm show its decaying Norman buildings and its two ponds as a picturesque ruin and a pleasant spot on the edge of the town.

Upon the Duke of Wellington's installation as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in August 1839, a grand fete was held in the Priory meadow.

He passed on his interest, however, to a group of leading citizens in Dover who had formed the Dover College Company to promote the foundation of a public school on what remained of the Priory site with the dual intention of providing a public school education for local boys and of using and thus preserving the Priory's remaining ancient buildings.