Witham Charterhouse was the earliest of the ten medieval Carthusian

Carthusian

The Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns...

 houses (charterhouses) in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

History

It was established at Witham Friary

Witham Friary

Witham Friary is a small village and civil parish located between the Somerset towns of Frome and Bruton. It is in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the ancient Forest of Selwood.- History :...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

 in 1178/1179 from a founding party led by a monk called Narbert from the Grande Chartreuse

Grande Chartreuse

Grande Chartreuse is the head monastery of the Carthusian order. It is located in the Chartreuse Mountains, north of the city of Grenoble, in the commune of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse , France. Originally, the château belonged to the See of Grenoble...

. The charterhouse was founded by Henry II

Henry II of England

Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...

 in his Royal Forest of Selwood

Selwood Forest

Selwood Forest is an area of woodland on the borders between Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire in south west England. In Anglo-Saxon times it was far more substantial and covered a much greater area forming a natural barrier between the Anglo-Saxons of Wessex and the Britons of Dumnonia and the Severn...

, as part of his penance for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket

Thomas Becket

Thomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...

 of Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

.

The house was suppressed

Religious intolerance

Religious intolerance is intolerance against another's religious beliefs or practices.-Definition:The mere statement on the part of a religion that its own beliefs and practices are correct and any contrary beliefs incorrect does not in itself constitute intolerance...

 as part of the dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 on 15 March 1539, and it surrendered without trouble.

The lay brother's church isnow used as the Parish church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St John Baptist and All Saints, Witham Friary

Church of St Mary, Witham Friary

The Church of St Mary in Witham Friary, Somerset, England dates from around 1200 and it has been designated as a Grade I listed building.The church was originally part of the priory which gave the village its name. The Witham Charterhouse, a Carthusian Priory founded in 1182 by Henry II, which had...

.

Archeology

In 1921 excavations revealed buttressed wall foundations and building rubble including glazed roof tiles and floor tiles. Later work in 1965 and 1968 revealed further buildings and two were interpreted as the chapter house and possibly a church.

Remains

The site of the charterhouse is marked by extensive rectilenear earthworks, cut by a railway line, and some worked stone can still be seen in buildings in the village of Witham Friary

Witham Friary

Witham Friary is a small village and civil parish located between the Somerset towns of Frome and Bruton. It is in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the ancient Forest of Selwood.- History :...

. The remains of the original monastic fishponds still survive to the east of the site.