Lancaster Priory

The Priory. Note the Bell Tower, an C18th addition.

Just a stone’s throw from Lancaster Castle is the Priory, built by Roger de Poitou in 1094 on the site of an earlier  Saxon monastery. Just as Roger’s early Norman building absorbed what had been there before, so too was his priory radically changed by C15^th additions and a large C18^th bell tower. 

Carved slab from the C10th bearing the motif of a hart and hound. The painted version shows what it might have looked like when new. Sculptures of this period were often painted. In this case the carving is quite shallow – ‘pecked’ with a series of blows with a pointed hammer, and so the paint would have emphasised the shape of the animals. 

                          Twelve such crosses survive from the Priory and its immediate surrounds. 

 

Baptismal font

The Victorians were responsible for much of the stained glass, the originals smashed during the Reformation.

Celtic saints next to it he Good Samaritan. 

Main altar window showing St George

The Regimental Chapter linked to those killed from the King's Own Regiment in the Boer War. A good collection of military colours hanging from the roof

Main altar window showing the crucification at the bottom and above it the resurrection

St Thomas's Chapel dominated by St Thomas stained glass. 

Both castle and priory continue to dominate Lancaster from their hill top position and would have shown the early Saxon populace that the Normans had come to stay.

But we hadn’t. It was late afternoon and we had a train to catch, a good meal to look forward to and joggers to entertain us as we ate.