engineering

Sheen Priory

Sheen Priory is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sheen Priory rather than just read about it. In short: Sheen Priory (ancient spelling: Shene, Shean, etc.) in Sheen, now Richmond, London, was a Carthusian monastery founded in 1414 within the royal manor of Sheen, on the south bank of the Thames, upstream and approximately nine miles (fourteen kilometres) southwest of the Palace of Westminster. It was built on a site approximately 1⁄2 mile (800 metres) north of Sheen Palace, which itself also occupied a riverside site…

Key takeaways

Sheen Priory belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sheen Priory to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sheen Priory from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sheen Priory (ancient spelling: Shene, Shean, etc.) in Sheen, now Richmond, London, was a Carthusian monastery founded in 1414 within the royal manor of Sheen, on the south bank of the Thames, upstream and approximately nine miles (fourteen kilometres) southwest of the Palace of Westminster. It was built on a site approximately 1⁄2 mile (800 metres) north of Sheen Palace, which itself also occupied a riverside site, that today lies between Richmond Green and the River Thames. All above-ground traces of the priory have disappeared, yet it is known that the foundations of the priory church lie to the immediate southwest of Kew Observatory, under the fairway of the 14th hole of the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Course, in Richmond Old Deer Park. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Richmond Priory, due to the subsequent renaming of Sheen Manor in 1501.

Background

Sheen Priory was built as part of King Henry V's "The King's Great Work" centred on Sheen Palace (renamed Richmond Palace in 1501). The royal manor of Sheen lay on the right (south), Surrey, bank of the River Thames, opposite the parish of Twickenham and the royal manor of Isleworth on the left (Middlesex) bank. Sheen had been a favourite residence of the last Plantagenet king Richard II (1377–1399) and his beloved wife Anne of Bohemia. When Anne died there of plague in 1394, Richard cursed the place where they had found great happiness and razed the palace to the ground. His throne was usurped by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, who ruled as Henry IV (1399–1413). Henry IV had been involved in the murder of Richard II in 1400, and in the death of Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York, and made a vow to expiate his guilt by founding three monasteries, but died before he could fulfil his vow. Henry IV had shown little interest in the ruined Sheen but his son Henry V (1413–1422) saw its reconstruction as a means of emphasising the dynastic link between his own House of Lancaster and that of Plantagenet, of unquestioned legitimacy, and decided at the same time to found the three monasteries pledged by his father all within one great building scheme, known as "The King's Great Work". This "Great Work" commenced in the winter of 1413–14, comprising the new Sheen Palace and the following monasteries nearby:

A monastery of the Celestine Order, established probably in Isleworth Manor. This monastery was of French monks, who refused to pray for Henry V following his warring with France, probably at Agincourt in 1415, and was therefore dissolved by the King almost immediately after its foundation. It probably occupied the site in Isleworth to which Syon Monastery moved in 1431. The Monastery of St Saviour and St Bridget of Syon, of the Bridgettine Order (1415): Syon Monastery, sometimes called Syon Abbey. The first and original site of this monastery was probably almost due west of Sheen Palace, across the river, on the left bank of the Thames in Twickenham Parish. The House of Jesus of Bethlehem of Sheen, of the Order of Carthusians (1414): Sheen Priory, the subject of the present article, built within Sheen Manor, to the north of the new palace.

Establishment of the priory In 1414, Henry V established the priory, designated "The House of Jesus of Bethlehem of Shene", for 40 monks of the Carthusian order. It was built approximately 1⁄2 mile (800 metres) north of the existing royal manor house or palace, and had 30 cells round a great court or cloister. The priory's endowments at its foundation included the church and rectory estate at Winterbourne Stoke, Wiltshire.

Nomenclature

During the reign of King Henry VII (1485–1509), formerly styled "Earl of Richmond", the former royal manor house or palace of Sheen built by King Henry V was replaced in 1501 by a royal palace which was renamed "Richmond Palace" in honour of Henry VII. The name of the manor itself was likewise changed from "Sheen" to "Richmond". The name of Henry's earldom derived from his former stronghold, Richmond Castle in Yorkshire, itself named after Riche Mont (Rich Mountain) in France. The Priory of Sheen, although it then found itself within the newly renamed manor of Richmond, nevertheless retained its ancient appellation of "Sheen", being a religious establishment, the function of which was ostensibly the glorification of God not, as in the case of the new secular palace, of the new King and Tudor dynasty, victorious after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. In 1500, at the command of Henry VII, the town of Sheen, which had grown up around the royal manor, was renamed Richmond, whereupon the entire ancient manor too, in which the new palace stood, became known as Richmond rather than Sheen. The ancient Manor of Sheen is now situated within today's London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The vestiges of Sheen Priory are thus situated in today's Borough of Richmond. That said, the ancient manor of Mortlake, which stood to the north and east of the ancient manor of Sheen, has in modern times been split into two new districts, North Sheen and East Sheen, although the area of neither was ever historically in Sheen Manor. Both are now in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.

James IV of Scotland Sheen Priory was the last resting place of the body of James IV of Scotland, who was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. His body having been found on the battlefield by the victorious English, it was enclosed in a lead coffin and sent to London, and thence to Sheen Priory. It seems that the body was not physically buried at the Priory, on account of James IV having been excommunicated. In any event, before long both the body and the Priory were lost to history.

Notable clerics trained at Sheen The establishment is celebrated as having been the nursery of Cardinal Pole and many other distinguished churchmen in the early 16th century.

Dissolution of the priory Sheen Priory was dissolved in 1539 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII. Its buildings and assets became Crown property and were disposed of in accordance with the King's wishes.

Sources Cloake, John (1990). Richmond's Great Monastery, The Charterhouse of Jesus of Bethlehem of Shene. London: Richmond Local History Society. ISBN 978-0950819860. Malden, H E (ed.) Victoria County History, Surrey, vol. 2 (1967) pp. 89–94. (Available at: www.British-history.ac.uk)

Notes and references

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sheen Priory

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sheen Priory claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sheen Priory before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sheen Priory ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sheen Priory

In research: Sheen Priory appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sheen Priory in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sheen Priory is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1414 establishments in England, 1539 disestablishments in England, Archaeological sites in Surrey, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sheen Priory outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sheen Priory in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sheen Priory means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sheen Priory out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sheen Priory in simple terms?

Why does Sheen Priory matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sheen Priory?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sheen Priory.