Pill Priory , is a Tironian house founded near Milford Haven in the late 12th century and believed to be a daughter house of St Dogmaels Abbey near Cardigan.

Pill Priory lies on a flat area of land, Click here for area map, overlooked from the west and east by steep, wooded, valley sides of the upper reaches of Hubberston Pill, some 1.7km upstream from its dammed estuary which forms Milford Haven docks.

Pill Priory lies on the confluence of two small streams and this at the center of the small community of Lower Priory, around 1km north of the town of Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, SW Wales. The medieval priory buildings occupied level ground within the triangular area between the two streams, running into a lake before entering Milford Haven docks.

Pill Priory lies near Liddeston which in turn lies almost entirely within the old and character ecclesiastical parish area of Hubberston, situated on the north shore of the Milford Haven waterway, Hubberston is now partly within the Milford Haven parish. It occupies the medieval Manor of Pill, part of the larger Manor of Pill and Roch that was created between 1100 and 1130, whose relationship with the Lordship of Haverford, within which it lay, was always a matter of dispute.

Pill was a large and important manor, encompassing the modern town of Milford Haven. Successive Lords of the Manor granted much of the land within this area to the late 12th century Tironian Pill Priory, and the priory fish- or mill-pond lies here. Settlement in this area comprises two large farms or hamlets. The first, Liddeston, was a medieval vill that was granted to Pill Priory, as ‘Lidden’s township’, in the mid 13th century. The Barlows of Slebech in the 16th century acquired it, with the priory. The second, Gelliswick, and its former rabbit warren, have long been thought to be associated with the priory. However, the place-name is not recorded until 1539 and appears to derive from the Gely family, who provided rectors of Hubberston in the 15th century. There is no evidence that its former windmill was associated with Pill Priory. The Barretts, the major landowners in the area, held it in the 16th century, and later the Philipps of Picton Castle.

The priory church was a large, cruciform structure constructed from the local Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous Limestone. It is now represented by just the chancel arch, the base of a square central tower and the south wall of the south transept. The layout and dimensions of the crossing and transepts are very similar to those of the mother house at St Dogmaels; however, from the standing remains alone it is not now possible to reconstruct either the plan or dimensions of the nave and chancel. It was suggested that the north transept was never completed, but masonry probably representing its north wall was exposed during the groundworks in the 1990' and watching brief.

The pictures below show the surviving ruins of the priory church.

East facing 'Chancel Arch'	South facing 'Transept'

The stairs in the Chancel Arch shown here on the right image below, which survives to varying degrees, was entered through a narrow doorway in the West facing Chancel Arch (left image).

West facing 'Chancel Arch Stairs Entrance'	East facing 'Chancel Arch Stairs'

12th Century

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