220 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1909 
HALF-DAY EXCURSION TO GLOUCESTER 
SATURDAY, July 4th, 1908 
Directors: The Rev. CANON BAZELEY, M.A., F.S.A. 
and H. W. BRUTON 
(Report by H. W. BRUTON and L. RICHARDSON) 
Among the Members who attended this excursion were :—The 
Rev. Walter Butt (President), Mr W. R. Carles, C.M.G., F.L.S. 
(Vice-President), Mr J. G. Phillips (Hon. Librarian), and Messrs 
W. Bellows, F. T. Bond, F.R.S.E., J. M. Collett, F.C.S., J. M. Dixon, 
T. S. Ellis, O. H. Fowler, H. Knowles, W. Margetson, A. E. W. 
Paine, J. W. Skinner, A. E. Smith, W. Thompson, etc. ; while the 
Rev. H. J. Riddelsdell came as a visitor. 
A visit was first paid to all that remains of Llanthony Priory* 
The Priory of Llanthony derives its name from the charming 
valley in Monmouthshire, where a monastery of Augustian Canons 
was founded early in the 12th century by Ernisi, who had been 
chaplain to King Henry I.’s wife, Mathilda. In the Civil Wars of King 
Stephen, the Welsh took advantage of their enemies’ divisions to 
ravage the lands which had been taken from them, and the unfor- 
tunate canons had to fly for their lives to Hereford. Bishop Robert 
Betun had been previously their prior, and he generously entertained 
them until they had well-nigh impoverished him. Then he induced 
Milo, the Constable of Gloucester, to give them a site called the 
Hyde for a permanent home near Gloucester. In 1136 their new 
church was ready for consecration, and they transported all their move- 
ables from the fastnessess of their first mountain home to Gloucester. 
Milo and his lineal descendents, the de Bohuns, were buried in the 
Chapter House and Choir. One of the most famous of their priors 
was Henry Dean, 1476-1496, who became successively Bishop of 
Bangor in 1496, Bishop of Salisbury in 1500, and Archbishop of 
Canterbury in 1501. The priory was surrendered to the King’s 
commissioners by Richard Hart the prior, and 21 canons, in 1539. 
No pains were taken to preserve the church and conventual buildings, 
and they rapidly fell into decay. Many tiles bearing the arms of 
Dene, brought, it is said, from Llanthony Priory after the dissolution, 
may be seen in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral. In the 
British Museum are a large number of manuscripts which once 
belonged to the library of the priory. Theyer, a learned antiquary 
of Cooper’s Hill, Brockworth, inherited them through a visitor of 
Prior Hart, and on his death they were sold to King Charles II. At 
the time of the siege, Llanthony was occupied by the King’s forces, 
t See Trans. of Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch. Soc., vol. xxvi, pt. 1 (1903), 
pp- 46 e¢ segg. 
