CANONSLEIGH

THE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE

The religious house of St. Mary and St. John the Evangelist of Leigh, later known as Canonsleigh, was founded in the twelfth century as a priory for Augustinian canons by Walter de Clavile, lord of Burlescombe. In 1284 the canons, whose numbers had fallen to seven, were evicted and the house was refounded by Matilda de Clare, countess of Gloucester and Hertford, as an abbey for canonesses of the same Order. Canonsleigh survived until the surrender of the monasteries in 1539, but neither as priory nor as abbey was it one of the famous religious houses. Few original documents are known and very little has been published about it.

The monastery was situated in the West Leigh tithing of Burlescombe parish, a part which was included in the old hundred of Halberton, and which lay about two miles west of the Devon-Somerset boundary and a mile north of the road from Exeter to Taunton. The site was a level meadow, sheltered from the north by a limestone ridge and bounded on the south by a stream. Demolition and rebuilding have made it impossible to trace the ground-plan of the convent, but a few ruins have survived and the distance between them shows how extensive was the area within the precincts. It is difficult to identify any lands of the abbey because many field boundaries were altered or destroyed by the construction of the Great Western main line and the West Leigh mineral line, and some of the streams have been diverted or absorbed by the Grand Western canal.

In the earlier period of its existence Canonsleigh had some connection with Plympton Priory, the oldest Augustinian house in Devon. The canons were described by William, earl of Gloucester, overlord of Walter de Clavile, as “serving Christ according to the rule of Plympton”. A comparison of the foundation charter of Canonsleigh with an inspeximus made for Plympton by Henry II, shows that the greater part of the property with which Walter de Clavile endowed his new house at Leigh had previously been given by him to Plympton. Finally, the rights which the priors of Plympton held in the early thirteenth century in connection with elections at Canonsleigh suggest those of a motherhouse.