Brainshaugh Priory

The shell of Guyzance Chapel NNW from Bank Top Cottages is preserved with substantial portions of masonry upstanding. The chapel was part of a medieval priory. Priories made an important contribution to medieval life and are important to our understanding of the close inter-relationship between social and religious aspects of life in the high Middle Ages. The structure of the monument and the ground beneath it will contain archaeological deposits relating to its use, construction and abandonment.

This monument includes the remains of a chapel of medieval date, situated on level ground on a bend in the River Coquet. The chapel is rectangular in plan and measures 18.6m by 4.8m internally. The chapel was once divided into equal halves representing the nave and the chancel. The walls of the chapel are constructed from rough dressed stone with a rubble core and are roughly 0.8m thick. The north wall is the most well-preserved standing to a maximum height of approximately 4m. The building contains two distinct phases of construction with the nave being late 11th– 12th century and the chancel 13th-14th century. The north wall contains a 12th century doorway, now bricked up and the west wall has 13th century windows. There are the remains of a similar window in the south wall where the remains of a 14th century window and piscina also lie.

Guyzance chapel was originally part of Guyzance, or Brainshaugh, Priory of St Wilfrid, which was founded between 1147-1152 by Richard Tison for Premonstratensian Canonesses. It is thought to have been abandoned at the time of the Black Death and later became a cell for the Premonstratensian Abbey at Alnwick. It was dissolved in 1539.

Parts of the chapel walls were incorporated into a post-medieval enclosure wall, which was built to enclose the grave yard and to protect the site from stone robbing. The floor of the chapel contains post-medieval flagstones and there is a 19th century grave slab at the western end. Guyzance Chapel is a listed building Grade II*.