St.Botolph's Priory Ruins, Priory Gardens, Priory Street, Colchester, Essex. - Preserved Architectural Remnants and Ruins on Waymarking.com

This remarkably ruin is Grade I listed and is managed by Colchester Borough Council in partnership with English Heritage.

These are the ruins of the great mid C12 conventual church of the Priory of St Botolph, founded at the beginning of the century as the first house of Augustinian Canons in England. It was built almost entirely with stone and brick taken from surrounding Roman buildings. There are great circular columns in brick to the nave, and the west front is particularly fine with curious interlacing arcades in brick. The church survived the suppression of the Priory in 1536 as it had been the parish church of St. Botolph's for some time. It was ruined in the siege of Colchester in 1648.

Founded between 1093 and 1100, the priory of St Julian and St Botolph was one of the first religious houses in England to adopt Augustinian rule. When St Botolph’s was dissolved in 1536 its possessions were granted to Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor.

Part of the church remained in use as a parish church until the seige of Colchester in 1648, when the Royalist town was attacked by General Fairfax. During the seige the church was largely destroyed by cannon fire and has never been repaired.

The nave was used for burials during the 18th and 19th centuries, and south of the church the cloister was at one stage laid out as a garden. The new St.Botolph's Church's foundation stone was laid in May 1836 by John Round Esq.

Description (from the English Heritage web site)

Even in its ruined state the priory church is an impressive example of early Norman architecture, and the elaborate west front is one of the best surviving examples from this period.

It had flanking towers to the north and south, unusually placed outside the nave aisles, and three doorways. The decoration on these – their mouldings and chevron ornament – are carried out in good quality limestone, but the individual stones are small and were evidently used with great economy.

Two rows of interlacing Roman brick arches originally ran continuously across the front between the towers. The remains of a large circular window just touching the top of the upper tier, in the middle of the façade, still has chevron ornament around its outer edge. Within this are traces of the rebate for the wooden frame that held the glazing. What remains of the upper levels of the west front indicate this richness of decoration continued all the way to the roof.

The church was built of flint rubble with arches and dressings in brick – the latter mostly reused from Roman buildings at nearby Colchester. Though simple in design the massive piers and arches of the nave are stunning in effect. The circular piers are strength-ened by triple courses of brick and the shallow pilasters running up from their capitals mark the division of the bays and the position of the roof tie-beams.

The masonry would originally have been plastered over inside and out and probably painted to imitate ashlar blocks; an effect that can be seen on the similar piers at St Albans Abbey. The base of a wall across part of the south aisle shows there was a chapel at this point, but other than that the internal arrangements of the church have been lost.

The fragments of a medieval glazed tile pavement in this aisle are probably not in their original position. Much of the north range of the cloister has been uncovered including the remains of its stone bench.

There is an information board at the east end of the ruins showing how the priory may have looked, an artist's impression of the west front and a plan of the whole site. A further board in the garden at the north-west gives brief information on the current care situation.

Type: Ruin Fee: Free entry. Hours: 24/7 Related URL: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   10/09/2015 Master Mariner visited it 03/07/2015 Box Teddies visited it 01/22/2013 peegeenine visited it

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