The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Ruined priory church
Ruined priory church
White Ladies Priory is a ruined Augustinian nunnery, originally founded as the Priory of St Leonard at Brewood. It is situated in the far east of central Shropshire, under a mile from the Staffordshire border and 8 miles E of Telford. All that remains are the external walls of the church with, to the S, the later wall of a catholic burial ground attached. All of this is in brown sandstone, and the structure stands alone in a field accessed by a narrow lane on the N side of the minor road linking the villages of Albrighton and Bishops Wood. The church dates from the later 12thc, and originally consisted of a 3-bay chancel, short N and S transepts and a 4-bay nave. Both transepts are gone, although the elaborate entrance archto the N transept remains. At the W ends of the lateral nave walls are a pair of doorways facing one another. The N doorway led into the cloister and is descibed as processional in Newman (2006), while the facing S doorway is plainer and narrower. Romanesque features recorded here are the two nave doorways.
Ruined priory church
The remains of the north aisle of the former Augustinian priory church of Ivychurch have been incorporated into a farmhouse. It was founded by King Stephen and presumably the remaining buildings date from his reign and the years following it. The double capitals set in walls around the site and the fountain in the village seem to come from the cloister.
Two reliefs portraying St Peter and St Paul were exhibited in the 1984 English Romanesque Art 1066-1200 exhibition but have not been located for this record.