Leominster
Herefordshire 

The Focus Site, Mill Street Wharton Court 16 South Street   Leominster, in north Herefordshire, is now the main settlement in the area once known as Leen, which in the native British language which evolved into Welsh meant ‘area of the streams’.  These streams would have been the rivers Lugg and Arrow and the Pinsley Brook around Leominster and flowing in from the west.    The land called Leen was the low land around these streams extending nearly as far as Kington to the west.  The name Leen occurs in a disguised form in the modern place names of the area: - Eardisland was just ‘Lene’ in the Domesday Book although we know that the name Werlesluna had been used ten to twenty years before.  Various other forms like Werlesluna - Orleslen(a), Erleslane and Erleslen all mean ‘Earl’s Leen’ – that part of the land of Leen which was held by the earl (Earl Morcar held this manor before the Norman Conquest) Kingsland was also just ‘Lene’ in Domesday.  The name Kingeslen(a) was in use by 1137 to 9 - literally the King’s Leen. Monkland was Leine in Domesday Book.  By 1170 it was Monecheslene - the part of Leen belonging to the monks of St Peter de Castellon, Conches.     Before the coming of the Germanic Anglian people, the native British may have known Leominster as Llanlleini which means ‘church in the district of streams’.  As it stands, this cannot be proved, but there are certain clues which suggest that the original church at Leominster dates from this early period. In the valley of the Wye and in south-west Herefordshire the church was associated with the bishopric which became Llandaff and was still in this diocese in the 11th century.  North and east of the Wye Valley was the Anglian diocese which became settled at Hereford by the late 8th century if not earlier.  North of the Llandaff-based diocese was the diocese based on St David’s.  Leominster had many links with central Wales and monastic churches traditionally claimed to have been founded by St David himself – Cregrina, Glascwm and Colva - stand on the route between it and Carmarthen and St David’s.  The feast of St David was one of the principle feasts of the monastic church of Leominster and its strong connection with the saint was shared by only one other English church – Sherborne, where Asser of St David’s became bishop in 900. If the original church pre-dates the coming of the English, then the priory site would be typical of the British church.  It was originally an island site, surrounded by marshland fed by the streams.     From the point of view of the English, the church of Leominster is recorded as being founded by Merewalh, sub-regulus of the Western Hecani, in 660 after his conversion by the Northumbrian monk Etfrid.  Merewald endowed his new foundation with estates in the surrounding area. The church of Leominster was a particular favourite of Leofric, earl of Mercia under King Cnut and husband of the pious Godifu - Lady Godiva.  It seems likely that it was Leofric who built the large stone structure recently found by ground penetrating radar adjacent to Leominster Priory. Edward the Confessor dissolved the pre-Norman abbey at Leominster following the scandal arising from seduction of the Abbess, Edgiva, by Earl Swein.  Swein was the eldest of the sons of Earl Godwine and the brother-in-Law of King Edward the Confessor.  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle text C (the Abingdon Chronicle), which tends to place the worst interpretation on the deeds of the house of Godwine, says that ‘he ordered the abbess of Leominster to be brought to him and kept her as long as it suited him, and then he let her go home’.   There are other versions, and it is also recounted that Swein abandoned his earldom because he was not permitted to marry her. Leominster Town Hall The abbess herself seems to be pensioned off with one of the abbey’s other manors, Fencote, which she held of the king in 1086.  There is an irony in the properties of the abbey being in the hands of the Queen Edith as a result of misconduct by her brother, but the dissolution of a religious house because of the behaviour of its head seems a somewhat severe reaction. In 1123 Henry I re-founded Reading Abbey, and at this time Leominster too was re-established, this time as a priory and a cell of Reading.  Manors which had previously been confiscated were returned. The stocks in Corn Square, Leominster in the mid 19th century       Much of the information here is in ‘The Early Church in Herefordshire’ edited by the Leominster History Study Group. Records relating to the archaeology of Leominster are held by Historic Herefordshire On Line A website specifically about the priory is maintained by the Friends of Leominster Priory; also visit www.leominster.co.uk       Back to Top