Butley

Oh, for an pictorial edition of Birch.  Butley Priory is best known for its flamboyant 14th-century gatehouse.  There's a good Wikipedia article on the Priory, and the Priory website itself has some gorgeous pictures.  The Gatehouse displays the shields of all the local - and some not-so-local - worthies.  (I used to know all about this in a former life, but it means digging out some very old notes and trying to decipher my scrawl, which, as any former pupil or student will tell you, is nigh on impossible.)  The diaper work is splendid - and the buttresses make virtues of necessity.  Notice even the little cinquefoil rose above the small doorway - a reminder that this priory was dedicated to the BVM - but with the shield of Sir Guy Ferre, the patron, in the centre.  It's a lovely piece of Dec.

The seal ought to be a similar riot, and it seems so from Birch's description, and, as soon as I can, I'll get a snap of it:

14th cent.  Pointed oval : the Virgin, seated on a throne, with crown, the Child, with nimbus, on her left knee, in the r. h. a sceptre fleur-de-lize, with birds billing in the foliage at the top, in an elaborately carved niche with buttresses at the sides, and canopy pinnacled and crocketed. [I bet that's glorious.  I like the sound of birds billing in the foliage.]  In the field outside the niche, on each side a palm branch. In base under a carved arch with a window of tracery on each side, the Prior kneeling in prayer to the left. [Was this the prior who managed to get Ferre to part with da goods?]

: S'. CE’. ECCE’. SC [E’. M]ARIE ❀ ‘’ ❀ DE [ : BV]TTELE :

Birch also has the seal of a 14th-century prior.  Birch names him as Roger de Bungay, but the VCH lists no Roger.  It's a rather fine seal, though.

Pointed oval : in two niches with carved canopy, the Virgin and Child on the left, and St. Margaret trampling on the Dragon and piercing its head with a long cross on the right. In base under an arch with sloping sides, the Prior kneeling in prayer to the right on a shield of arms : two wings conjoined in lure?

MARGARETA • PIA P[RO] • ME • DEPRECARE • MARIA.

The wings conjoined in lure could be a reference to Wingfield, local gents and patrons.  (Wingfield has both a fine castle and a fine college.) It wouldn't be surprising if one of the priors was from the family, although this is sheer speculation:  the priors are all local boys, however.  The hexametric rhyming couplet tag follows a fine sigillographic tradition.