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Wednesday, September 1, 2021

White Ladies, Brewood

 A slight departure - no seal for this one yet, but some capitals instead.

White Ladies, or the Priory of St Leonard, Brewood, was founded during the reign of Henry II by - well, no-one knows whom.  English Heritage suggests a wealthy patron because the church was built in a single campaign, but that patron didn't give the priory any suitable endowment.  The White Ladies remained gently poor; the church is as it was (albeit now in rather more ruinous a state) when it was first built, and the nuns numbered no more than half a dozen.  Although in a very different part of the kingdom, this priory recalls Sylvia Townsend Warner's fictitious Oby Priory.  The only thing I can ever remember about White Ladies is one 14th-century prioress (Alice Harley) being chastised for going hunting with her hounds. 

A friend insists on finding nice, interesting places to stretch one's legs on a journey, and that's how we found ourselves at White Ladies. Only the remains of the church are left - nothing of the conventual buildings stands.

The capitals are here:


They are unlike, for example, those at Buildwas, but they may bear comparison with Lilleshall. I stick them up here to invite comparisons!

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