Documents found at Kingston House. 301 
claim on the part of the City was, that by Letters Patent dated 
12 July, 6 Edw. VI. 1552, they had, upon petition, obtained 
for the purpose of founding a Grammar School, a grant from 
the Crown of all the lands in the City and Suburbs, lately 
belonging to the Priory, including the contested way into the 
Orchard. 
The case of the other party was, that long before the grant 
made to the Mayor and Corporation, Henry VIII., by Letters 
Patent dated 16 March 1543, had granted to Humfrey Coles 
for the sum of £962 17s. 9d., the site of the said Priory, with 
every thing within the circuit of the said Priory. That 
Humfrey Coles on 18 March in the same year, 1543, sold the 
Orchard to Matthew Colthurst and his heirs: that it descended 
to Edmund Colthurst, who 41 years afterwards, 1584, quietly 
enjoyed it as part of the Priory House. Edmund Colthurst 
mortgaged it to Sherston for £330, and John Hall, Esq., 
redeemed it and had a conveyance. In 1611 Edmund Colthurst 
and Henry his son sold it to John Hall and his heirs. That 
the Prior had no other Orchard, and that this way was always 
accounted part of his house, the windows of which opened 
intoit. This part of the house was pulled down by Colthurst, 
and the ground thrown into the Orchard. The foundations 
were still to be seen within it. ‘The prior did use to sit there 
and view all the Orchard.” A door opened from the Priory 
into it, and the way in was by a terrace made with arches of 
stone, 40 foot long. That the Orchard was bounded on the 
North side by the ancient wall of the Priory, 20 foot high and 
160 paces long, reaching to the Avon: on the South, by a 
great ditch betwixt the meadows called “The Ham,” and the 
Orchard, and on the East by the River. That the Prior and 
the Patterches (the Monks) and ever since their time the 
Colthursts, have enjoyed the fishing and cut down the trees 
these 80 years. That the Priory is situate within the Cor- 
poration of St. Peter and St. Paul, and is a privileged place of 
itself, not within the Corporation of the City of Bath: and 
when the Mayor of Bath came into the Priory, the Maces were 
