Home > Encyclopedia > Placeography > Sites

Greyfriars

roseAgas Map
roseList documents mentioning Greyfriars
roseList variant names and spellings
Enduring for over three centuries, longer than any other London friary, Greyfriars garnered support from both England’s landed elite and common Londoners. Founded in 1225 on a tenemant donated by London Mercer John Iwyn, Greyfriars housed London’s Franciscan Friars (known in England as the Grey Friars). The friary expanded from its original pittance of land on the west side of Stinking Lane to over four-and-a-half acres by 1354 (though this area was slightly reduced in 1368 and again in 1398 when the friars gave two plots of land to the Bridge House estate that maintained London Bridge). With the patronage of Queens Margaret, Isabella, and Philippa throughout the fourteenth century, the Franciscans constructed a formidable church, London’s third largest after St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey. Greyfriars, like nearby Blackfriars, was a locus of preparatory study long before its official designation as an academic centre in the fifteenth century. After the friary’s closure in 1538 pursuant to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the church became the centre of the newly established Christ Church parish, and the cloisters housed Christ’s Hospital (Holder 66–96).

References