Goldcliff Priory

Goldcliff Priory was a Benedictine monastery in Goldcliff, Newport, South Wales, founded in 1113 by Robert de Chandos and subject to the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. The priory was situated on the site now occupied by Hill Farm, to the south of the current farmhouse, on the prominent knoll of high ground next to the sea. As late as the 1950s Hando remarked that outlines of buildings which were probably part of the priory could still be seen in grass patterns or crop marks at certain times of the year. By the 1970s the only remaining physical remnant of the priory was to be found as part of a cellar in the farm house.

Royal Commission aerial photography on 24 May 2010 recorded parched building foundations of a substantial building on the south side of a larger enclosure. The building, comprising a central block with flanking wings, measured overall approximately 37 metres (121 ft) east-west by 11 metres (36 ft) north-south, and sat on the south side of a bivallate earthwork enclosure measuring approximately 75 metres (246 ft) square.

In 1113 the manor of Monksilver, near Williton in Somerset, was given by Robert de Chandos to endow his new priory. Until the 14th century the manor was called Silver, but thereafter it was called Silver Monachorum or Monksilver because of its ownership by the Priory."

Robert de Chandos was followed by his son Robert, who died in 1120 and was buried on the south side of the choir in Goldcliff parish church. The community was a sizable one at times—there were 25 monks in 1295, and still eight towards its close. It also supported secular chaplains to assist with its work, with four of these in 1297. Unusually, as at the modern communities of Prinknash and Farnborough, the monks at Goldcliff wore white habits. This was in contrast to the black ones typically worn by other Benedictine monks, like those at Ramsgate and elsewhere.

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