Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, City of London - John Schofield

This is an archaeological, architectural and historical study
of one of the largest complexes of buildings in the medieval City
of London, but one which is largely unknown and of which only two
fragments survive above ground today. It is the fifth volume in a
series on the monasteries of London. Holy Trinity Priory,
Aldgate, was the first religious house to be established inside
the walls of London after the Norman Conquest, in 11078; one of
the earliest Augustinian houses to be established in England; and
the first to be dissolved, in 1532. By 1200 the precinct north of
Leadenhall Street and just inside Aldgate was filled with
imposing stone buildings, including a large and architecturally
impressive church which was the burial place of two of the
children of King Stephen in the middle of the 12th century.
Londons first mayor, Henry FitzAilwin, was buried in the entrance
to the chapter house. In the 16th century the monastery was owned
by the Duke of Norfolk, second only to Queen Elizabeth in power,
who was executed in 1572 for his part in plots surrounding Mary
Queen of Scots. Several modern excavations of 1977 to 1990, many
antiquarian drawings, and a ground-floor and a first-floor plan
of all the monastery buildings made around 1585 are brought
together here for the first time, to reconstruct a fully
illustrated and detailed history and archaeology of the priory
site. Not only can all the major periods of the priorys building
history be suggested and compared with other religious houses in
medieval London, but the excavations produced their own
surprises, such as evidence of the beginning of the tin-glazed or
delftware pottery industry in the 1590s, and a unique Jewish
plate of the 18th century.