Middle Ages

Timeline

Saxon

St Mary’s

St Giles’

St Laurence’s

The Abbey

The Monks Day

The Abbot

Pilgrims

The Grey Friars

Quakers

Baptists

Congregation-alists

Catholic Church

St Mary’s Castle Street

The Grey Friars

The monks at the abbey soon had a rival religious community in the town. The Grey Friars, of the order of St Frances of Assisi, first came to the town in 1233 and requested a site in the town. They wished to minister to the needs of the poor of the town. The abbot did not really wish for a second abbey in the town, and so he gave them a rather wet and marshy site on the road towards Caversham. Although they built several buildings on this site, it was often cut off by flood water in the winter, so the friars could not reach the needy in the town. The abbot was in no hurry to give them a better site. It was not until 1282 that the friars were given a more suitable site at the end of Friar Street (then called New Street). The reason for the change was that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the church in England, was a Franciscan and helped his fellow friars.