Blackfriars

Blackfriars Priory, with its magnificent timbered roof, is the most complete survival of a mediaeval Dominican priory in Britain.

The original medieval cloister, completed in 1239, includes the Scriptorium where the monks once worked over 750 years ago. This is believed to be England's oldest surviving library building.

The Priory was built on land formerly occupied by the castle of William the Conqueror . The friars were preachers and teachers as well as confessors to the rich and powerful. Evidence of their community role came to light in 1991 with the excavation from their cemetery of many skeletons of women and children, including that of a young woman with hereditary syphilis. Mysteriously its age predates the supposed introduction of the disease from the Americas by about 80 years.

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in the sixteenth century the monks were dispersed and in 1539 the priory was purchased by Sir Thomas Bell. He cut off the ends of the massive church to create a private mansion and used the other cloister buildings for his business, which employed about a tenth of the city's population making knitted caps.

Blackfriars continued as a private residence until the 20^th century, with the rest of the priory buildings largely used for industrial purposes. In the 18th century a woolstapler and stonemason plied their trades in the cloistral ranges. In 1780 the Great Hall was leased to a church and later became a private school. By the 1930s the scriptorium was a mineral water bottling factory, part of the west range was a pub and until recently Gloucester Clutch Clinic workshops occupied a large area of the cloister.

Currently there are plans afoot to turn the building into a cultural centre.