Monastic Wales.








Remnants of Brecon Friary


The site of the former friary is now occupied by Christ College school. Today the friars' choir and chancel serve as the chapel of Christ College; ruins survive of the nave (NPRN 301834) which is now roofless. The chapel was much restored in the nineteenth century by Seddon and Pritchard but is nonetheless a fine example of thirteenth-century work. Six choir stalls with carved misericords survive depicting an angel, skeleton, lions and a horse. The choir stalls date from the fourteenth century but were restored in the seventeenth century.
Nothing remains of the cloister, chapterhouse and other monastic buildings but their position can be inferred from documents and the location of the cloister is evident as a grassy square. The nineteenth-century 'L-shaped' buildings to the south of the cloister incorporate medieval fabric of what may have been the friars' refectory or infirmary (with a polygonal eastern apse) and what was possibly a guesthall or bishop's hall; they date from c. 1240 and the latter has a fine open timber roof.
The precinct wall was shown in its entirety by the cartographer, John Speed (1551/2-1629), at the beginning of the seventeenth century (1611). It is not clear if the wall that runs along the Bridge Street frontage on the north, and on the river side to the east comprises part of the original medieval wall or is a later reconstruction entirely. [1]

[1] http://www.cpat.org.uk/resource/reports/cpat1090.pdf [Medieval and Early Post-Medieval Monastic and Ecclesiastical Sites in East and North-East Wales: The Scheduling Enhancement Programme (report for Cadw)]; Coflein database; http://www.christcollegebrecon.com/about/History_of_Christ_College.php; Easterling, R.C., 1914, ‘The Friars in Wales’, Archaeologia Cambrensis 14 , 338; Owen, W.G., 1996, Christ College, Brecon: archaeological evaluation, Welshpool: CPAT Report 185; M. Salter, Abbeys, Priories and Cathedrals of Wales (Malvern, 2012), p. 29.


Monastic sites related to this article

Brecon, Powys(Friary)
 
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