Remains of Tythe Barn on North Side of Inner Court
In 1135 after persistent attacks from the local Welsh population, the canons of Llanthony Priory retreated to Gloucester where they founded a secondary cell, called Llanthony Secunda.[6][7]
Llanthony Secunda was known for cheese-making; in 1502 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prior of Llanthony gave presents of "Lanthony Cheese" to Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII.[8] In 1530 the prior of Llanthony at Gloucester sent "cheese, carp and baked lampreys" to King Henry VIII at Windsor. It was customary at the commencement of the fishing season to send the sovereign the first lamprey caught in the river. The intermittent custom of the City of Gloucester to present the sovereign at Christmas with a lamprey pie with a raised crust may have originated in the time of King Henry I, who was inordinately fond of lamprey and who frequently held his court at Gloucester during the Christmas season.[9] At the Dissolution of the Monasteries the priory and its lands near Gloucester were granted by the Crown to Arthur Porter.[10]
During the Siege of Gloucester a Royalist cannon, shipped in from Holland to Bristol and from there to Gloucester, was placed on the walls of Llanthony Secunda and directed at Gloucester's City Wall. It was hoped by the besieging monarch, Charles I, that this cannon would break the siege and win him control of the city. The cannon misfired and exploded on the first shot. Some believe this to be the origin of the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme; but this is disputed. The true origins of Humpty Dumpty are unknown but the idea that it refers to the Royalist cannon during the Siege of Gloucester is often cited as fact.[11]
Llanthony has given its name to a weir on the River Severn, which is the normal tidal limit on the East Channel of the river, and the disused Llanthony Lock, both built about 1870.[12]
Llanthony Lock was purchased by the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust in 2008[13] to restore the link between that canal and Gloucester Docks.
Margaret of Hereford (d.1187), eldest daughter and eventual co-heiress of founder, who inherited the patronage of Llanthony Secunda Priory, wife of Humphrey II de Bohun (d.1165)
Eleanor de Braose, wife of Humphrey de Bohun, son and heir apparent of Humphrey IV de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford, 1st Earl of Essex (1204–1275), by whom she had issue, including Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford. She was herself descended from the founder's 2nd daughter and eventual co-heiress Bertha of Hereford who married William de Braose (d.1192), Lord of Bramber, Sussex.
^Wade, George Wöosung; Wade, Joseph Henry (1930). Monmouthshire. Little Guides (2nd ed.). London: Cambridge University Press. p. 101. Retrieved 30 October 2010. … during the disturbances of Stephen's reign they suffered so much from the raids of the Welshmen, that under the patronage of Milo of Gloucester, Constable of England, and in 1140 Earl of Hereford, they migrated to Gloucester where a new Llanthony was founded for them in 1136.
