St James' Priory, Bristol

St James' Priory is the oldest building in Bristol — a Norman church founded almost nine hundred years ago, which has survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries, centuries of change, and a period of dereliction to flourish once more as an active place of worship. Founded around 1129 as a Benedictine priory, it is a Grade I listed building, and after a major restoration it now serves as a Roman Catholic church in the Diocese of Clifton, together with a charity that cares for some of the most vulnerable people in the city.

The priory was founded between about 1124 and 1137 by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of King Henry I and one of the most powerful magnates of his day, who was at the same time building the great keep of Bristol Castle just across the River Frome. It was the first religious house in Bristol. The Earl endowed it generously with his great meadow — the origin of the modern Broadmead district, which the priory laid out as a planned suburb — and with a vast lay cemetery stretching south towards what is now the Horsefair. A charming tradition, recorded by the antiquary John Leland, holds that as the stones for the castle were shipped over from Normandy, every tenth stone was set aside to build the priory. Earl Robert himself was buried here before the high altar in 1147, and among others laid to rest in the priory was Eleanor, the "Fair Maid of Brittany", a granddaughter of Henry II.

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, St James' Priory was surrendered to the Crown in 1540 and most of its buildings were demolished. The nave of the church, however, survived — for as far back as 1374 an agreement between the Abbot of Tewkesbury and the parishioners had made the nave their responsibility, and the tower had been added at about the same time. The nave thus continued in use as a parish church, and over the following centuries it was altered and added to, the south aisle being rebuilt in 1698 and the north aisle in 1864.

For much of its history the priory was famous for the great St James's Fair, which Earl Robert's foundation had granted it the right to hold. From the thirteenth century an annual fair was held here, eventually for a fortnight each September, in the churchyard and surrounding streets — the most important of all the Bristol fairs. Its income allowed the church to be richly decorated, with an elaborate reredos and a rood screen specified to be grander than the one at St Mary Redcliffe. The fair was a riot of trade and entertainment, with theatre, bear-baiting, wrestling, wild-animal shows, acrobats, Punch and Judy and magicians, and merchant ships sailing to Bristol for it were so laden with goods that they were sometimes attacked by pirates in the Bristol Channel. Among the troupes of players recorded as performing at the fair were the Lord Chamberlain's Men, raising the tantalising possibility that Shakespeare himself once performed in Bristol. The fair grew so notorious for its frivolity, however, that it was finally suppressed in 1837 under pressure from moralists, though its memory survives in Bristol place-names such as the Horsefair and the Bearpit.

By the late twentieth century the church had fallen into disuse, and it was declared redundant and put up for sale. Its revival came in 1996, when the Little Brothers of Nazareth re-established it as a Catholic church and founded the St James Priory Project, a charity that offers support to vulnerable people, especially those struggling with addiction and mental illness. A major restoration, funded with the help of a Heritage Lottery grant, was completed in 2011, rescuing the building from the "at risk" register; during the work archaeologists uncovered a fifteenth-century carved sundial that may be the earliest scientific sundial in Britain, and the discovery that one of the church's statues had originally been bare-chested made headlines around the world.

Today St James' Priory continues as a thriving Catholic church and charity, its ancient Norman nave once again at the heart of the life of the city.

The priory stands on Whitson Street, near the Horsefair and the Broadmead and Cabot Circus shopping districts in the centre of Bristol. Bristol Cathedral, the church of St Mary Redcliffe, the city's old centre and floating harbour, the M Shed and SS Great Britain, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the wider attractions of Bristol are all within easy reach.

From its founding around 1129 by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, as the first religious house in Bristol, through the great St James's Fair and the survival of its nave after the Dissolution, to its rescue and revival as a Catholic church and charity, St James' Priory gathers nearly nine centuries of the history of Bristol into one building. A Grade I listed Norman church and the oldest building in the city, it remains a living place of worship and a centre of compassion in the heart of Bristol.