Friars on TV: Visit to Gloucester Blackfriars

Last week a group of friars were very warmly welcomed to Gloucester to visit the medieval Dominican priory, the most complete that has survived from the Middle Ages in England.

We enjoyed the immense hospitality of the local community, and the visit even managed to prompt some media interest from the BBC and ITV.

Gloucester Blackfriars was established around 1239, not long after the friars first arrived in England. And in the year we celebrate that arrival in 1221, our 800th Jubilee, it was a great joy to reconnect with the life of our medieval forebears. We were greeted on arrival by the Mayor of Gloucester, Councillor Collette Finnegan, and subsequently treated to a tour of the magnificent priory by Phil Moss, a local historian and expert guide to Gloucester Blackfriars.

The day finished with a walk across town through the Gloucester docks to Llanthony Secunda, the site of a medieval Augustinian priory.

All the friars express their immense gratitude to those who invited us and made the day possible, especially the Mayor Councillor Collette Finnegan, Mhairi Smith from the City Council, and our guides Phil Moss and Stephanie van Stockholm. Our thanks also go to Paul James, a former councillor of the city who initially made contact.

You can find more photos and details of the visit on the student brothers’ blog here.