Author name: Richard Clarke

When Michael de la Pole founded the Carthusian monastery in 1378 (s.p.b.) he also founded an almshouse for 13 poor men and 13 poor women. Five years later the two institutions were separated for administrative purposes and from thereon the almshouse/hospital were known as ‘God’s House in Hull’. These medieval buildings were demolished during the […]

And so to Hull.Friaries apart (see later) monasticism came late to Hull. In 1378 Michael de la Pole founded a Carthusian Priory outside the town walls (still under construction at that time) on an open rural site north of the town. To have crossed on foot from the North Gate in the town walls to

The photo. above, credited to Dr. B. English, is of the ‘former prior’s lodging, Watton, photographed in 1989′ and scanned from p. 29 of Claire Cross’ book (s.p.b.s). This building still stands and, I believe, is still lived-in as a private residence. It is the only standing building remaining from the complex of buildings that

Above is an illustration of three seals for official documents from Swine Nunnery as reproduced in Thomas Thompson’s book. One shows a seated Cistercian nun, probably an abbess/prioress. Apart from the nunnery at Swine and the double house at Watton (see later) the other nunneries in the East Riding were small establishments. The nunnery at

Above is an 18th century engraving showing Swine church post Reformation but before the tower was rebuilt in 1787 (for the church today s.p.b.s). Clearly the church of the Cistercian nunnery had a crossing tower and transepts, the bricked-up entrance to the nave from the crossing tower shows a late-Norman arch testament to the initial

Given that nunneries were comparatively numerous in the East Riding, although all except Swine and Watton (see later) were small, it is worth dwelling on this issue for a while. The maintenance of a nunnery presented considerable logistical problems and Thompson (s.p.b.s) tries to address some of these. Given that the Cistercian Order defined what