Holywell Priory, Shoreditch

Holywell Priory or Haliwell, Halliwell, or Halywell (various spellings), was a religious house in Shoreditch, formerly in the historical county of Middlesex and now in the London Borough of Hackney. Its formal name was the Priory of St John the Baptist.

The Priory stood at Holywell Lane on the west side of Shoreditch towards Hoxton, its precinct lying within the area now bounded by Batemans Row, Shoreditch High Street, Haliwell Lane, and Curtain Road.

It is sometimes said in secondary literature to be a Benedictine foundation, made by a Bishop of London, but it was certainly a house of Augustinian women, established in the twelfth century by Robert FitzGeneran (or Gelran), the second known holder of the prebend of Holywell or Finsbury in St. Paul's Cathedral (the prebend also passed to the Priory), his name occurring from 1133 to 1150. The founder made an endowment gift of three acres across the moor on which the Halliwell, or Holywell spring had its source.

In 1239 there was a gift to the nuns of 300 tapers from King Henry III, who in 1244 also gave twelve marks for the rebuilding of mills that had been burnt down through the carelessness of the King's bakers. In 1318 came a gift of six oaks from the forest of Essex from Edward II. However, the crown paid little attention to the priory, at least as far as royal patronage was concerned. More generally, there were few benefactions from magnates before the reign of Henry VII when as almost the last great benefactor, Sir Thomas Lovell, Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared on the scene and virtually refounded the house. He caused extensive building work at the priory, including the construction of a chapel in which he was buried in 1524.

The size of the community doubtless varied over the years. In 1379 there were eleven professed nuns in the priory. At the election of the Prioress Elizabeth Prudde in 1472, it is recorded that seven nuns and ten novices were present. At the election in 1534 of the last prioress, Sybil Newdigate, there were 13 professed nuns and 4 novices present.

Apart from paid lay employees, there were also lay brothers attached to the priory. They may never have been very numerous. In 1314 a complaint was lodged about two brothers misappropriating property at Shoreditch. From an earlier period, we know the name of one of the brothers, Peter, whose father was Odo, a smith who in 1275 gave rents in London to the priory for his son.

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