Newcastle-under-Lyme No. 2 / Newcastle under Lyme

No individual entry found for Newcastle-under-Lyme in the Domesday survey. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (Stafford, vol. 3, 1970) notes: "There were Dominican friars in residence at Newcastle-under-Lyme by July 1277 [...] It is not known how long the Newcastle house had been in existence or who founded it. [...] By the time of the dissolution in 1538 the house was very poor [...] Apart from three sets of silk vestments, only two of which were complete, everything in the church was old, or of inferior material, or in some way defective. The furnishings included a 'fair table of alabaster' for the high altar, one notable coppergilt crucifix, with Mary and John, a latten censer, and a latten holy-water stoup, but most of the other ornaments were poor and old. [...] The site of the priory lay a little to the east of the castle in the angle at which Blackfriars Road on the south-west meets Goose Street on the south-east and where the Smithfield Cattle Market is now situated. [...] Adjacent streets are known as Friarswood Road and Friars Street, the name given in recent years to what used to be Friars Lane. The Lyme Brook, a tributary of the Trent, is believed to have flowed through the friars' precinct."