About: Stogursey Priory

Stogursey Priory, also called Stoke Courcy Priory or The Priory of St Andrew de Stoke, was a Benedictine alien priory dedicated to St Andrew at Stogursey in Somerset, England. It was founded by William de Falaise, around 1100, to become a cell of Lonlay-l'Abbaye in Normandy. In around 1185 John de Courcy, its hereditary patron, founded the Priory of the Ards (Blackabbey) in County Down, Ireland, making an endowment of that estate to Stogursey Priory. The priory church survives as the parish church, and contains some of the original Norman architecture. Many of the priory's muniments are held in the archives of Eton College, which King Henry VI endowed with the appurtenances when the house was dissolved in about 1440.