page_title: Bentley Priory
section_title: Medieval beginnings
hierarchical_section_title: Bentley Priory / The priory / Medieval beginnings
caption_attribution_description: English: Heriot Wood, Bentley Priory nature reserve, Stanmore, Harrow, London
context_page_description: Bentley Priory is an eighteenth to nineteenth century stately home and deer park in Stanmore on the northern edge of the Greater London area in the London Borough of Harrow.
  It was originally a medieval priory or cell of Augustinian Canons in Harrow Weald, then in Middlesex. There are no remains of the original priory, but it probably stood near Priory House, off Clamp Hill.
  In 1775, Sir John Soane designed a large mansion house north of the original priory, called Bentley Priory, for the wealthy businessman James Duberley. This was added to throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by various owners. It was significantly extended in 1788, again by Sir John Soane, for John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn. The priory was the final home of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, queen consort of William IV, before her death there in 1849. It subsequently served as a hotel and girls' school before being acquired by the Royal Air Force in 1926.
  In the Second World War, Bentley Priory was the headquarters of RAF Fighter Command, and it remained in RAF hands in various roles until 2008.
context_section_description: Although little detail is known, the lands of Bentley Priory and the surrounding area were scantily populated but civilised long before the time of the Romans. At the time the first Priory was dedicated, the majority of the area was in the Manor of Harrow. The rest of the land in which the Priory now stands was in the area held by the Count of Mortain and known as Stanmore Magna.
  Although the area was in part heavily wooded, many Anglo Saxon finds have been made indicating thriving communities around Brockley Hill and Harrow Weald Common. Professor J E B Gover in his book Place Names of Middlesex, derives the word Bentley from Anglo-Saxon: the prefix Bent from 'beonet', a kind of coarse grass or bent grass and the suffix ley from 'leah, a tract of cultivated or cultivable land, a piece of land cleared from forest for pasture, etc. Thus the name Bentley would seem to mean land artificially cleared of coarse grass for pasture or cultivation.
  By the time the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, William the Conqueror had invested his own bishop (Lansfranc) with the Archbishopric of Canterbury and restored the lands of Harrow, appropriated by King Edward the Confessor, to the Church. The original Priory, which was the only monastic establishment in the Manor of Harrow, housed a cell of Augustinian Friars. Bentley Priory is (doubtfully) said to have been founded in 1171 by Ranulf de Glanvill, who was King Henry II's Justiciar from 1180 to 1189. It was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, and was in the patronage of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It may have been founded as a cell of St Gregory's Priory, Canterbury, and was certainly under its rule by 1301, when the prior of Bentley was reported to have let a farm without the approval of his superior, the prior of St Gregory's.
  In 1243, the king pardoned the prior the interest on 60 shillings which he had borrowed from the Jews, and in 1291 the prior's goods at Stanmore were valued at 10 shillings, and land and rents in Wotton at 13s 4d. It is referred to in the early 14th century, but according to the court rolls of manor of Harrow in 1535, St Gregory's had ceased to maintain a cell at Bentley many years earlier.
  The first Priory was reported by Druett in his book, The Stanmores and Harrow Weald Through the Ages, to stand further downhill than the present building. He places it in the area of Priory House on Clamp Hill, with the chapel standing apart on Harrow Weald Common. However, the evidence to substantiate this is inconclusive. It would appear that a small agricultural hamlet existed in the shadow of the Priory Chapel. This Chapel, of which all trace has been lost, is believed to have served the 'city' community that lived on the Weald.
  Apart from a short list of Priors from this period in The Victoria County History of Middlesex, the only other reference to the Priory is in Chronicle by Matthew Paris who was a monk and chief copyist at St Albans. He mentions under the date 1248 the story 'Of the Miserable Death of the Priory of Bentley'. Apparently a hayrick fell upon him whilst he was inspecting it.
  Another early reference to the Priory can be found in The Harrow Rolls of 1512, These state that:
  'The Priory was built in honour of St Mary Magdalene, and the Archbishop of Canterbury beyond memory gave the Priory with all its lands to the Priory of St Gregory without the wall of Canterbury, and to the convent there in pure alms; that they from time of such grant used to find a priest to celebrate Mass and other divine services in the chapel within the Priory each week, and that the priest used to be called the Prior of Bentley'.
  "Thus Bentley Priory and its lands, apart from being passed back and forth between church and lay owners in its early years, managed to avoid falling into the covetous hands of its neighbours."
  St Gregory's was dissolved in 1536, and the buildings and land of the former Bentley Priory were granted to Archbishop Cranmer, but in 1542 he was forced to hand them back to the king, and in 1546 they were granted to Henry Needham and William Sacheverell.
caption: Heriot Wood, in the grounds of the Priory, probably dates back to the end of last Ice Age[4]
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