Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/51

THE PRIORY. 35 The site of Mrs. Langdon's buildings, abutting upon the Northumberland Foundry, and the adjacent sites of Mr. William H. Hender's houses, as well as those parts of the Station Road at the bottom of " St Thomas Street," were all heretofore called The Priories. Until recently St. Thomas Street was the [only] street in the Hamlet of St. Thomas. We now occasionally hear the whole Hamlet corruptly designated, "The Hamlet of St. Thomas Street." John Leland, who visited the Priory while Sir Gawen Carew held it, in the sixteenth century, thus writes: "The Priorie of Launstoun standith in the south-west part of the suburbe of the towne [Newport, not Dunheved] under the rote of the hille, by a faire wood side, and thorowgh this wood rennith a pirle of water [Harpery's Lake], cumming out of am hil therby, and servith al the offices of the place. In the Chirche I markid two notable Tumbes, one of Prior Horton, and another of Prior Stephane [Tredydan]. One also told me there, that one Mabilia, a Countess, was buried ther in the Chapitre House. . . . There is a chapelle by the west-north-west, a litle without Launstowne, dedicated to S. Catarine. It is now prophanid. In the Priorie Chircheyarde standith also a Paroche Chirche. By the north side of the Priorie rennith a litle river" [the Kensey]. In our chapter on St. Thomas we may show that the Parish Church here mentioned was distinct from the Priory buildings. Within a hundred years of the "dissolution" of the Priory, scarcely a vestige remained of its once princely buildings. It is too late to enquire whether this utter destruction — this displacement of even the fragments of a ruin — arose from the popular rage against Popery, or from the hands of Cromwell's soldiers. Whatever the cause, this is certain, that the stately Chapter-House, the Refectory, D 2