255 
the Court house, gave a short history of the same, gleaned 
mainly from the Rev. Thomas Hugo’s paper in Vol xii. of the 
“ Somersetshire Archeological Society’s Proceedings,” and from 
“Gossiping Notes,” recently contributed to the Bristol Times 
and Mirror by the Rev. W. H. Hardman. The Elizabethan 
mansion before them (he said) occupied the site of a small Priory 
called Mynchin Barrow Priory,t one of the medieval nunneries 
of Somersetshire, inhabited by nuns of the Benedictine Order, 
and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and S. Edward, king 
and martyr. Its situation on a pleasant rising ground or knoll 
probably gave it the name of Barrow, formerly spelt “ Barwe,” or 
“ Barewe.” The word Mynchin, of course, was a medizval term 
for a nunnery. The name of Barrow Gournay arose from the 
connection of the noble family of Gournay with this Manor. 
Indeed the foundation of the establishment is by some attri- 
puted to Eva de Gournay, granddaughter and heir of 
Robert Fitzharding, to whom William Rufus had granted 
the property. This Eva de Gournay married Thos. de Harptree 
(temp. Richard I.), and died before 1230. Her son, Robert de 
Harptree, assumed the name of Gournay, and was founder of the 
Hospital of Gaunts in Bristol. Subsequently the Manor passed 
into the possession of the Berkeleys, Comptons, Clarks, Gores, 
Blagraves, from whom it passed to the present proprietors, the 
Gibbs. The list of the prioresses was given, and the date of their 
death, drawn up from Rev. Thomas Hugo’s paper, differing some- 
what from that given by Collinson. The nuns seemed to have 
obtained a yearly pension from the Church of “'Twiverton,” near 
Bath, of £1 6s. 8d., or “two marks.” Mr. Scarth concluded by 
saying that the present Court had been built out of the materials 
of the old Priory, and that nothing at all belonging to the latter 
date had been found until quite recently, when some encaustic 
tiles had been exposed i situ, which he would proceed to show 
+ Mynchin, from Saxon Minicene, a nun. 
