Lucy de Newchurch

Life

Little is known about Lucy's life except that she was from Herefordshire and was the first known of a series of hermits who inhabited a cell on Brandon Hill, Bristol, in a chapel owned by St. James Priory.

In November 1349, two years before she entered her cell at the hermitage, Lucy obtained an indult from the pope allowing her to "choose a confessor who should give her plenary remission at the hour of death."

After obtaining the papal indult, Lucy petitioned the bishop of Worcester, John of Thoresby, multiple times, to allow her to take up residence as an anchoress in the hermitage and chapel of St. Brendan. This view was supported by the antiquarian Rotha Mary Clay, who described the bishop as being "impressed by Lucy's earnestness" and who identified Lucy as probably the same individual described in a deed from 1351 as an anchoress who held land on Brandon Hill. Worcester also claimed it was the highest structure in Bristol, having been erected on a hill that "" or "disappointment with the world." One guide book written "for strangers" on the "curiosities of Bristol" described Lucy as the first of a series of hermits who had "wasted their lives [in the hermitage], down to the days of the Reformation."

In 1885, a poem appeared in the antiquarian James Fawckner Nicholls' guide book How To See Bristol mocking Lucy's decision to enclose herself in a cell rather than engage in domestic work, child care, or moral reform efforts. The poem, which follows a description of Brandon Hill, reads as follows:

Lucy de Newchurch here sat in her cell A patching her soul, and stopping each hole That the world or the devil could enter. 'Twas well For a woman that knew no better. But she'd dout the sun with a half-penny squirt, Or mop up the sea with the tail of her skirt, Convince all maids that 'twas wicked to marry, Before she could outmanoeuvre Old Harry, Or before he alone would let her. Had she handled a broom in some humble room, Or crooned babe's "Babel" while rocking her cradle, Or scalded her hand with the iron ladle Whilst giving soup to some hungry group; Or sopped a crust for some toothless gum,

Or said to some fallen sister, 'O come! This way of life abandon!' She'd have been much nearer to kingdom come, Than here by herself on Brandon. According to James R. Bramble, the president of the club, Dr. Fryer believed the "walls found several feet below the surface of the summit of the hill to have been remains of a 'crypt belonging to the Chapel of St. Brandon,' and that the skeletons were those of 'some of the poor hermits who once occupied the hermitage.'" Alfred Hudd, the club's secretary, who visited the site, believed the walls were more likely to be those of the hermitage chapel itself rather than a crypt.