Witham Friary

Witham Friary is a small English village and civil parish located between the towns of Frome and Bruton in the county of Somerset. It is in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the ancient Forest of Selwood.HistoryThe parish was part of the hundred of Frome.The village takes its name from the Witham charterhouse, a Carthusian Priory founded in 1182 by Henry II, which had peripheral settlements including one at Charterhouse and possibly another at Green Ore. It is reputed to be the first Carthusian house in England. One of only nine Carthusian Houses, the priory did not survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries. At the dissolution it was worth £227; the equivalent of £52,000 today (2006). Excavations in 1921 revealed buttressed wall foundations and building rubble including glazed roof and floor tiles. It is a scheduled ancient monument.