Pamber Priory

[2] The de Port family came from Normandy, close to the Abbey of Saint Vigor, and the foundational charters have survived in the archives of The Queen's College, Oxford.

A significant amount of building work took place between 1255 and 1260, aided by gifts of timber from the King's forest by Henry III,[4] who visited the priory on at least five occasions between 1251 and 1261.

[6] The priory appears to have been economically viable during this early period, but following the death of Henry III in 1272, conditions changed for most religious houses, including Monk Sherborne.

Edward I passed a Statute of Mortmain in 1279, which prevented patrons from giving land to the church, and so a valuable source of income for the priory ceased, as did royal patronage, which had been fairly regular under Henry III.

[8] In 1348 the country was decimated by the Black Death, and in 1350 the Bishop of Winchester notified the Abbey of St Vigor that Monk Sherborne Priory had "... reached such desolation and spiritual decline, with sterility of its lands, that the place is now destitute ...".

A brief period of respite followed the start of Henry IV's reign in 1399, as foreign monks could return to the country, and conventual priories were exempt from the seizure of alien lands in 1401.

[1] In the 15th century, Queen's College founded a chantry, and the presiding priest also ministered to those who lived nearby in Pamber, but had no parish church, as if it was a chapel of ease.

This was obviously well received, because when the chantry was dissolved in 1547 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the local people felt that the priory chapel was their church, and brought a suit in the Court of Chancery against the officers of the College for failing to provide a priest.