Barnstaple Priory Barnstaple Priory The Priory of St Mary Magdalene in Barnstaple was a priory in Devon, England. It was founded in about 1107 by Juhel de Totnes, feudal baron of Barnstaple, who had earlier founded Totnes Priory in about 1087 at the "caput" of his former feudal barony of Totnes, from which he had been expelled. Barnstaple Priory was of the Cluniac order, and was senior to all others of that order in England. It was dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. It was situated on land outside the town walls stretching from the North Gate to the East Gate with the
Mayor of Barnstaple which the lord's steward, not the mayor, presided, that the borough was taxed by the county assessors, and that the lord held the various assizes which the burgesses claimed. Indeed, the purported ancient royal charter supposedly granted by the Anglo-Saxon King Aethelstan (d.939) (King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to 939) and held by the corporation, from which it claimed its borough status, was suspected to be a forgery. Since 1974 Barnstaple has been a civil parish governed by a town council. An incomplete list of the mayors of Barnstaple between