Partney Monastery

The existence of a Saxon Monastic house in Partney is known only from two references in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) of 731.^[3][4]

In Bowyer's History of the Mitred Parliamentary Abbies^[5] and other 18th- and 19th-century authors Bede's placename Peartenau is identified with Bardney. But Bede mentions Peartenau and Beardeneu in adjacent paragraphs, and the link to Bardney is now discredited.^[6] Pearteneau is likely to be Partney. The monastery is thought to have been destroyed by Viking raids around 870.^[6][7] No archaeological trace is known, but some burials confirm Saxon occupation at that time.^[8][9][10]

Dig at Partney

Work on the town's bypass was preceded by a major archaeological investigation,^[11] which concentrated on a Romano-British settlement and the 10th century monastic hospital.^[9][10][12] Apparently unrelated to the lost Saxon monastery, the later Benedictine medieval abbey of Bardney established a hospital at Partney, run as a cell of the abbey. The hospital was dedicated to St Mary Magdalene.^[6][13] The chapel survived only as wall foundations as the above-ground remains have been entirely robbed out. The foundations suggest a modest rectangular stone building measuring 13.8 yards long by 7.2 yards wide with external buttresses.^[10]

Domesday

Partney appears twice in the Domesday Book, as part of the Manor of Bardney. It is rendered as "Partenai" or "Partene",^[14]