Finchale Priory

Finchale Priory is a Grade I listed ruin of a Benedictine priory, a daughter house of Durham Cathedral Priory, incorporating the hermitage site of St. Godric. The site is located north of Framwellgate Moor.

History and Development

The history of Finchale begins with St. Godric, a hermit who lived on the site from 1115 until his death in 1170, when the buildings became the property of the Prior of Durham Convent. In 1196, Hugh Puiset, son of Bishop le Puiset, was granted the site in return for closing his Augustinian Canons' foundation called New Place on the River Browney. He then granted Finchale to the Durham house, and simultaneously granted to the Prior and Convent of Durham the right to elect the Prior of Finchale. The earliest surviving structures date from around 1196 and were erected to provide accommodation while the principal ranges were being built. These structures are a rare example of such early ecclesiastical domestic buildings. The main buildings were constructed from around 1237 until the late 13th century, when the earlier buildings were also extended. The church was completed around 1277. Around 1364, significant alterations were made: the church aisles were demolished except for that on the south of the nave, which became the north cloister walk; arcades were blocked and windows were inserted; a small addition was made to the north-east of the church; and the cloisters were altered. Also dating from the 14th century are the frater and a building to the north-west of the cloister. In the 15th century, a kitchen was added to the south-east of the cloister, linking with the prior's lodgings, which were themselves altered and extended.

Structural Materials and Overall Appearance

The surviving structures are built of coursed sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and a plinth. No roofs survive.

The First Buildings

The earliest structures survive only to a height of a few courses and are domestic rather than ecclesiastical in character. The plan shows a hall with screens, a north solar, a large cross wing added to the solar, and a passage to the east of the solar leading to a garderobe.

The Church

The church has a four-bay nave, five-bay quire, presbytery and vestry, with aisles removed. Transepts feature an east chapel on the north, and a crossing tower. A wide west door is set below three lancets, although the heads of these lancets are lost. The north walls survive to the level of the heads of moulded two-centred arches of the arcade. The blocking of the arcade encloses original columns and contains windows with reticulated tracery, dated to 1364, of which only the example in the quire survives complete. Other walls survive to below this level. Buttresses, clasping at the corners, are present.

The interior reveals nave piers that are alternately round and octagonal, with moulded plinths and capitals. The quire and presbytery have three north arches, the easternmost displaying a capital carved with finely-executed acanthus leaves, crockets and pine cones. The large east window splays show double-shafted blind tracery; the window head has been removed. An aumbry is located in the north presbytery wall, and a piscina and sedilia are in the south presbytery wall. The foundations of the earlier Chapel of St. Godric, together with the site of his tomb, lie within the presbytery. Some plaster with geometric painting survives on the piers.

The crossing has massive round piers, with a newel stair in the north-west. The north transept contains two west lancets. On the east, a small 14th-century door lies between a blocked two-centred-arched door to the chapel and a similar window with Decorated tracery; each has an altar below. The south transept, which served as the former Lady Chapel, has an altar below a large east window.

The Cloistral Ranges

The east range includes a chapter house with dripmoulds over a wide central door flanked by large windows. The interior reveals stepped stone wall benches along three sides, with stone arms to the Prior's seat at the centre of the east wall. The south end of the range is subdivided by 15th-century walls into storage rooms and a large south room of unknown function, without windows. Above the chapter house and the southern portion of the range was the dorter, of which only the gables survive.

The south range is three storeys in height at its west part to the same height as a two-storey east part, which was later raised to three storeys. Steps lead up to a moulded two-centred-arched doorway of two orders leading to the cloister garth from the west bay; mouchettes appear in the window above. Four north lancets open to the cloister, two in the west gable and five in the south wall, with square windows to the undercroft and to an added storey of which only part survives. Steps down lead to two-centred-arched doors to the undercroft at the centres of the north and east elevations.

The interior of the undercroft shows rib vaulting resting on keeled shafts and quatrefoil piers without capitals; some retains plain plaster. The south range is the frater, with an undercroft. In the west bay of the frater, a fireplace at the south end of the west wall has a plain stone lintel; a central stone-hooded fireplace above has shafted corbels. Fifteenth-century divisions appear in the west bays. A slype is located at the east end of the south range.

The west range has a high blank wall with a 13th-century door at the north end leading to a buttressed 14th-century undercroft of a building of unknown function. Excavation suggests other buildings existed on this range, perhaps guest accommodation, though the range is blank to the cloister. A small square building stands at the north. The interior of the north-west building shows a vault with six square ribs springing from a central octagonal pier.

The cloister walks show 13th-century bases of paired shafts on the south, and 14th-century windows surviving only to sill level on the east and west. The north walk has one filleted shaft on the north face, unrelated to the present structure.

To the south-east, a reredorter adjoins the east range. It has a natural rock floor and shows no drain, only a clearance arch at the east. Corbels for a pent roof are close-set on the south.

The Prior's Lodgings

North of the reredorter and at a higher level are the prior's lodgings, which are parallel to the church. The east-west range has vaulted undercrofts except for a barrel vault at the east end; some vaulting survives, with chamfered ribs on filleted shafts. The range includes a hall, camera, study and chapel with undercrofts. Shouldered heads appear on two doors in the south wall and on one in the west wall of the chapel, which projects to the south.

The buttressed east wall of the chapel has a plain door and window to the undercroft; a three-light window above features some Decorated tracery. The east elevation of the camera has a dripmould over a high two-centred-arched window with cusped tracery; a 15th-century stair-turret stands to the north. The study to the north of the camera has two two-light windows, one with lancet heads and one with segmental heads; 15th-century garderobes are present. The north elevation of the study shows a buttressed oriel window. The interior reveals two west undercrofts with ribbed vaulting with filleted shafts; barrel vaults in the two eastern bays, with part of a tiled floor surviving above.

The kitchen is located to the south-east of the cloister and links with the prior's lodgings.

Finchale Priory is scheduled as an ancient monument.