Caldey Priory is a Grade I- listed

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of ...

Caldey Island Caldey Island (Welsh:''Ynys Bŷr'') is a small island near Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, less than off the coast. With a recorded history going back over 1,500 years, it is one of the holy islands of Britain. A number of traditions inherited f ...

off the coast of Pembrokeshire,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, some south of the modern Caldey Abbey.

History

Sir

Robert fitz Martin Robert fitz Martin ( 10?? – c. 1159) was a knight from Devon whose father, Martin de Turribus, was the first Norman Lord of Kemes, in what had previously been the Dyfed part of Deheubarth. Fitz Martin inherited the Lordship of Kemes from his f ...

was granted the island in 1113 and his mother Geva founded St Mary’s Priory as a daughter house of the

Tironensian The Tironensian Order or the Order of Tiron was a medieval monastic order named after the location of the mother abbey (Tiron Abbey, french: Abbaye de la Sainte-Trinité de Tiron, established in 1109) in the woods of Thiron-Gardais (sometimes '' ...

St. Dogmaels Abbey The Abbey of St. Mary (also known as St. Dogmaels Abbey) is Grade I listed ruined abbey in St Dogmaels in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on the banks of the River Teifi and close to Cardigan and Poppit Sands. It is the ruins of a medieval abbey, orig ...

in the 12th century.Bushell, William Done. ''An island of the saints'', 1911, London. p. 4 et seq.
/ref> The priory became a cell of St. Dogmaels. It was constructed of limestone and indigenous sandstone around a small courtyard, and probably built on a preexisting Celtic Christian site, and lasted to the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. It was a very small monastery, with the number of monks resident there ranging from one in the late 12th century, four in 1402 and six in 1504. The property was acquired by one John Bradshawe of

Presteigne Presteigne (; cy, Llanandras: the church of St. Andrew) is a town and community in Radnorshire, Powys, Wales on the south bank of the River Lugg. Formerly the county town of the historic county of Radnorshire, the town has, in common with sev ...

and passed through a succession of owners. The buildings were significantly upgraded in the 16th century after the priory was secularized, but there is no evidence that they were used by either of the owning families of the time. Several centuries later they were used as a farm house, centered on St Illtyd's priory church. Around 1800 they became the farm buildings for a new house built for Thomas Kynaston, owner of the island from 1798. According to Rev. W. D. Bushell, who bought the priory in 1897, the church was in very bad repair and had been used as a blacksmith shop. In 1838, extensive work was done on the south and east walls of the chancel, and the roof. Bushell sold the property in 1906 to the Anglican Benedictine community that built the current abbey, but rented the house and the priory until he died in 1917. The house was subsequently demolished in the 1970s. The priory buildings are built from rubble stone, with slate roofs, and are grouped around a small courtyard. Over the centuries they have been altered many times and have a very complex history. On the north side was a domestic range that has not survived. The

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most ...

is on the western side and there is a two-storey

dormitory A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university ...

with a tower on the eastern. The church stands on the south side, and consists of

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

and west tower with a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

. St Illtyd's church is still a consecrated Roman Catholic Church."The Old Priory and St Illtyd's Church". Caldey Island, Wales
/ref>"Caldey Priory", Parks & Gardens, The Hestercombe Gardens Trust
/ref>

Notes

{{reflist, 30em Monasteries in Wales Grade I listed buildings in Pembrokeshire