2.1 INTRODUCTION

The Friary's estate and its changes in ownership since its Dissolution in 1538 have been little researched. While any closely-focused study such as this will have its own particularities, it may also help to illuminate and refine our wider understanding of changes in the patterns of land ownership connected to former religious houses. Moreover, by concentrating on one place it is also possible to examine those patterns over a much longer period than usually is the case.

Very brief lists of the Friary's first few holders, covering six parties in consecutive order, have been published. Lists begin with an expression of interest in the site from Jane Calthorp(e) in May 1538 while the Carmelites were still living there, and end with a record of Friary ‘concealed lands’ in 1575/6. The Friary's story is then blank for over three centuries until we leap to 1914 and learn that the site was owned by the Walpoles, Earls of Orford. Now, it is part of the estate of the Coke family, Earls of Leicester. Thus, there was no information on who owned the site, and how they used it, for 70% of the time between the Dissolution and the present day.

As well as a paucity of information on the Friary's holders, the full extent and location of its estate, namely the precinct plus its other lands, was not fully understood. The boundary wall (or its remains) on the north, east and west sides of the precinct confirm its location and approximate area (see Fig. 2). The line of its southern boundary may be indicated by the present hedge along the southern side, but it may have stood a little further to the north, where there is a slight east–west earthwork containing masonry.

There is documentary evidence of three gifts of land after the Carmelites had established themselves at the Burn valley site. Their original estate or site was augmented by:

• i. 1 rood (0.25 acres) of meadow in 1298, given by Walter de Calthorp,

• ii. a messuage and croft (of unknown area) in 1350, by William de Denton, chaplain,

• iii. 3 acres of land in 1353, by Ralph de Femenhale (?Hemenhale) and Richard Fermen.