page_title: Black Ladies Priory
section_title: Dissolution and sale
hierarchical_section_title: Black Ladies Priory / Dissolution and sale
caption_attribution_description: English: Madonna and child, thought to have been damaged during the English Civil War, and long considered thaumaturgic, at St Mary's Roman Catholic church, Brewood, Staffordshire, England.
context_page_description: Black Ladies Priory was a house of Benedictine nuns, located about 4 km west of Brewood in Staffordshire, on the northern edge of the hamlet of Kiddemore Green. Founded in the mid-12th century, it was a small, often struggling, house. It was dissolved in 1538, and a large house was built on the site in Tudor and Jacobean styles by the Giffard family of Chillington Hall. Much of this is incorporated in the present Black Ladies, a large, Grade II*-listed, private residence.
context_section_description: Black Ladies, Brewood, was scheduled for dissolution with the rest of the lesser monasteries. The prioress at the time of dissolution was Isabel Lawnder, who had been in office at the visitation of 1521. However, bidding for the site went on for at least a year before the actual dissolution. There was considerable interest in the site from local landowners –  especially from Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall, near Penkridge, who built his family's fortune through a career of exploiting leases and purchases of ecclesiastical lands. A letter was sent on 11 October 1538 to Thomas Legh, who was dealing with the surrender of Black Ladies for the Court of Augmentations, stating that the lease of the house and farm was granted to Thomas Giffard of Stretton (in Penkridge), a gentleman usher of the chamber and the son of Sir John Giffard of Chillington.
  Legh, who had earned a reputation for his high-handed treatment of monks and nuns, took over from Prioress Isabel on 16 October 1538.
  She received a lump sum of 40 shillings for her cooperation and an annual pension of £3 6s. 8d. thereafter. The other three sisters each received precisely half these amounts: their names are given as Christabell Smyth, Alys Beech and Felix Baggeshaw. These pensions were confirmed by the Court of Augmentations on 1 February 1539. £3 18s. 2d. was used to pay off the eight servants of the priory, including £1 10s. for William Parker, the chaplain. The goods and chattels were then auctioned off and recorded as bought by Giffard, with a total value of £7 6s. 1d – a very small sum even by the standards of the time. They included three bells in the church tower, a silver chalice, three spoons, one horse, a wain and a dung cart, together with the furnishings and fittings of the brewery, cheese loft and other buildings. However Legh then wrote to Thomas Cromwell, enclosing the letter about Giffard’s lease of the property and pointing out that Littleton too had been given a firm promise that it would be his. He sarcastically noted that the new custodian of Lilleshall Abbey, to which he had travelled immediately from Black Ladies, was concerned lest he too be supplanted in his absence. He had, he said, put Littleton and Giffard jointly in charge "till they know the king’s further pleasure."
  Ultimately Giffard emerged as the victor and in February 1539 he was sold the site, watermill, demesne lands, church and churchyard, steeple of Black Ladies, worth £7 9s. 1d. a year, for the sum of £134 1s. 8d. The sale was confirmed by the Court of Augmentations.
caption: The Brewood Madonna, an image moved from Black Ladies to the new church of St. Mary in 1846. It is thought to have been damaged during the Civil War and was long considered thaumaturgic (miracle-working).
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "HITACHI HDC-1061E", "Image Make": "HITACHI", "Image Model": "HDC-1061E", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "1.22.000", "Image DateTime": "2011:04:13 15:26:42", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "270", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "41888", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7736", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/7", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:04:13 15:26:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:04:13 15:26:42", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "281/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "149/50", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "31/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "other light source", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "41764", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}