Guidebook: Wenlock Priory - Red Guide

Wenlock Priory was among the greatest monasteries of the Welsh Marches. Most of the surviving ruins date from the 12th and 13th centuries and preserve features that are exceptional in English monastic architecture. A joint monastery for men and women was first founded here in about 670 and had an Anglo-Saxon princess, Milburga, as its second abbess. The monastery was then refounded shortly after the Norman Conquest by Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, making Wenlock one of the first Cluniac monasteries in England. ‘Few [ruins] are better calculated to please the eye or fire the imagination than those of Wenlock.’ John Randall, Randall’s Tourists’ Guide to Wenlock (1875) After the remains of St Milburga were rediscovered in about 1100, the priory became a focal point of local pilgrimage. The monastery was suppressed under Henry VIII. Its buildings were sold and the church was quickly demolished while the prior’s lodging and infirmary were converted into a residence. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the owners of the site turned the ruins into a garden for the converted prior’s lodging. Responsibility for the care of the ruins was passed to the State in 1964 while the house remains in private hands. Key Features: Exclusive to English Heritage