Holywell Priory nr Shoreditch / Haliwell / Halliwell / Halywell

No individual entry found for Holywell or variants in the Domesday survey. The Victoria County History (Middlesex, vol. 1, 1969) notes: "The priory of St. John the Baptist at Haliwell, or Holywell, in Shoreditch, although often described both by contemporaries and historians as a Benedictine nunnery was, like the better-known priory of Clerkenwell, a house of Augustinian canonesses. It was one of the larger English nunneries, ranking ninth in wealth—three places higher than Clerkenwell—in the Valor [...] The founder was Robert Fitz Generan (or Gelran) [...] Robert's name occurs from 1133 to 1150. [...] The priory precinct lay within the area now bounded by Batemans Row, Shoreditch High Street, Haliwell Lane, and Curtain Road. [...] No record of the actual dissolution has been found but in 1539 the disposal of the lands was proceeding apace."