Qualla: Woodspring Priory

Woodspring Priory: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rodw, CC BY-SA 3.0. Roger Tormenton was elected prior of Woodspring in 1525. Nine years later, when Henry VIII broke with Rome and acknowledged himself Supreme Head of the Church in England, Tormenton signed the Act of Supremacy without protest. By then he had already sold a third of the priory's property to Thomas Horner of Mells Manor - the same family that gave us "Little Jack Horner" and his Christmas pie. Faced with what was coming, Tormenton chose self-preservation over piety. The First Suppression Act passed in 1536, dissolution followed, and Woodspring's seven centuries as a religious house ended quietly, with the prior probably saving himself rather than the institution. What survives today is the husk: a 13th-century church, a 15th-century barn, a gatehouse, a farmhouse, and a Tudor garden hinted at in the patterns under the lawn.

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Image: Rodw | CC BY-SA 3.0

Woodspring Priory: Founded From the Sea Edge

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adrian and Janet Quantock, CC BY-SA 2.0. Woodspring Priory sits on the Somerset coast just inside the scenic limestone promontory of Sand Point, where it looks across the Severn Estuary towards Wales. The first buildings had been completed by 1242 - we know this because they are described in a letter to Jocelin of Wells...

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Image: Adrian and Janet Quantock | CC BY-SA 2.0

Woodspring Priory: Never Rich, Always Working

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rodw, CC BY-SA 3.0. Woodspring was not a wealthy house. William de Courtenay had granted them the manors of Woodspring, Worle and Locking, but for most of its existence the priory got by on legacies and farm income. William Button left 210 marks in 1277 - a respectable bequest but hardly a fortune. ...

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Image: Rodw | CC BY-SA 3.0

Woodspring Priory: Dissolution and Scattering

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rodw, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Tormenton handed Woodspring over in 1536, the canons left for other houses and the treasures were scattered to the local churches. The priory's reliquary went to St Paul's in Kewstoke. The carved misericords - the wooden tip-up seats with their hidden sculpted brackets - tra...

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Image: Rodw | CC BY-SA 3.0

Woodspring Priory: What Survives

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rodw, CC BY-SA 3.0. The site is now owned by the National Trust, and its most striking surviving features are protected as Grade I listed buildings or scheduled ancient monuments. The original 13th-century church no longer stands, but the current church - in Perpendicular Gothic style - has a two-ba...

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Image: Rodw | CC BY-SA 3.0

Woodspring Priory: The Name That Stuck

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. When local government reorganisation in 1974 carved Avon out of Somerset and Gloucestershire, the new district covering this stretch of coast needed a name. They chose Woodspring, after the priory. The county of Avon dissolved in 1996, the district vanished, and North Somerset to...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0