With Cardigan’s new community integrated care centre on schedule to open by the end of this year there is increasing speculation about what will happen to the town’s historic hospital site on the banks of the River Teifi.

From medieval priory, to genteel Nash-designed residence, to life as a memorial hospital, the current Cardigan Hospital building has a rich history nearly as old as the town.

It has links with the castle, the church and the development of the present-day town – but what will happen when the hospital finally closes at the end of the year?

Historian Glen Johnson has extensively researched the site’s history.

“We know that it was a medieval priory, the original building probably established by Roger de Clare around 1160 (50 years after the foundation of Cardigan) as the Benedictine Priory of St Mary,” he said.

“Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis) the famed medieval scribe, noted the presence of a small priory of Benedictine black monks when he visited Cardigan in 1188.

“A century later the monks were presented with ‘The Croft at the Great Ditch Field’ – the piece of land that later became Priory Street.

On John Speed’s map of Cardigan in 1610, the Priory is marked as ‘The Colledg’ meaning a community rather than an educational establishment.

Six years later it was granted by King James to the Phillips family of Tregibby. During the Civil War, James Phillips was a colonel in the Parliamentary army and received a pair of Charles I silver communion cups from Oliver Cromwell to thank him for his efforts.

Those cups are still in use today as part of the town council ceremonial maces.

Col Phillips’ second wife Katherine Fowler was feted in national literary circles and known as ’Orinda’. The couple lived at the Priory from 1648 to 1664.

In 1663 Orinda produced her first dramatic production – a translation of ‘Corneille Pompey’ at the new Theatre Royal in Dublin.

Her translation was the first rhymed translation of a French tragedy in English and she became a major figure in Irish literary circles.

She died of smallpox in London at the age of just 33.

In the 18th century the Priory changed hands many times and in 1789 Elizabeth Johnes of Croft commissioned a new Priory House designed by celebrated architect John Nash.

Newly completed the house features in a painting by Sir Richard Colt-Hoare in 1793.

John Bowen – who built Castle Green House in 1808 – lived at the Priory before moving into his new home in the castle.

The house continued to change hands and in 1845 was advertised to let.

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