Introduction

A Benedictine Priory was established at Spettisbury by Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, and Earl of Melent. He was the Chief Minister and army commander of Henry I and after the reconquest of Normandy in 1106, Spettisbury was given to him by the King by way of reward. He founded a Priory on his estate at Spettisbury and gave it, with land sufficient to maintain the monks who were to live there, to the French Abbey of St. Pierre de Preaux, which was founded before 833 near Pont Audemer. Robert de Beaumont died at Preaux in 1118. With the outbreak of the Hundred Years War with France in 1338, Edward III seized the Abbey’s possessions and the Priory came under the care of the Prior of Monks Toft in Norfolk. And following the loss of Normandy in the early 15th century, the assets of Spettisbury Priory were again taken from Preaux by Henry V and granted to the Carthusian monastery of Witham in Somerset who continued to maintain Spettisbury until 1535 when Witham was suppressed by Henry VIII. The estates were valued at £18.2s.8d in 1291 and £35.0s.10d in 1535. The King gave the site of the Priory with the manor and advowson to Charles, Lord Mountjoy in 1543.

Nothing remains of this Benedictine Priory and the site of the original Priory has not been ascertained but it was most likely quite near the present parish church. In the basement of Cedar Lodge has been found evidence of 13th and 14th century occupation which could well have been of the conventual buildings of the Priory. Another tradition has it that the old Priory may have been where “Monks Mulberry” now stands. An Ordnance map of 1885 states “Summer House on site of Benedictine Priory”. Monks Mulberry was formerly known as “Summer House” and also as “Garden Tower”.

A sixteenth century seal of The Prior, part of the collection of ancient seals and coins of the Rev.Thomas Rackett F.R.S., F.S.A., F.L.S., Rector of Spetisbury (from 1781 to 1840), now in the Dorchester County Museum, shows the Priory to have been dedicated to St. Monica – it bears the legend:

X SIGILLUM. MONASTERII ST MATRIS MONICA

The seal is circular, 2 inches in diameter and shows St. Monica with nimbus standing turned slightly to the right, a tau cross in her hand.

The Seal of St.Monica’s Order

Although today there is only one village at Spetisbury, in earlier times there were three distinct settlements strung along the edge of the River Stour, which gradually became the present village; the southernmost settlement around the SW end of Crawford Bridge was Crawford Magna, the northernmost was Spettisbury, while the centre settlement between the other two was Middle Street. The field boundaries of the parish also show these settlements with two lines of almost continuous hedges crossing the parish dividing it into the original medieval land blocks. South Farm was called Middlestreet Farm in 1811.

Spetisbury showing the settlement of Middle Street

After a break of 265 years Spettisbury was to see a revival of the monastic life. In 1800 the property known as Spettisbury House, which had been the manor house of Middle Street, was taken over by the first of four different Orders, the Canonesses of St. Augustine, and became known as St. Monica’s Priory.