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Crossed Friars

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One of the smallest London friaries, Crossed Friars (also known as Crouched Friars or Crutched Friars) housed the Bretheren of the Holy Cross. Despite John Stow’s assertion that the friary was founded in 1298 (Stow 1:147), it is first mentioned by Henry III in 1269, which suggests that Raph Hosiar and William Sabernes gave their founding bequest some time in that decade. Over the next three (or possibly four) centuries, the friars added a dozen more tenaments to the precinct. By the early fourteenth century, the friary occupied over two acres of land south of Hart Street (later dubbed Crutched Friars) that ran along the west side of Woodroffe Lane to Tower Hill. Compared to friaries such as Blackfriars and Greyfriars, Crossed Friars was humble, and the friars’ plan to expand their church was interrupted in 1538 by the Dissolution of the Monasteries (Holder 142–159).
After the dissolution, part of the precinct was given to Sir Thomas Wyatt to build Lumley House, and the friars’ hall became a glasshouse wherein was made glasse of diuers sortes to drinke in. The glasshouse burned down on 4 September 1575 (Stow 1:148).
Crossed Friars was not represented by a unique marker on the Agas map because it was dissolved before the map was drawn.

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