cultivable land, a piece of land cleared from forest for pasture, etc. Thus the name Bentley would seem to mean land artificially cleared of coarse grass for pasture or cultivation. By the time the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, William the Conqueror had invested his own bishop (Lansfranc) with the Archbishopric of Canterbury and restored the lands of Harrow, appropriated by King Edward the Confessor, to the Church. The original Priory, which was the only monastic establishment in the Manor of Harrow, housed a cell of Augustinian Friars. Bentley Priory is (doubtfully) said to have been founded in 1171 by Ranulf de Glanvill, who was King Henry II's Justiciar from 1180 to 1189. It was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, and was in the patronage of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It may have been founded as a cell of St Gregory's Priory, Canterbury, and was certainly under its rule by 1301, when the prior of Bentley was reported to have let a farm without the approval of his superior, the prior of St Gregory's. In 1243, the king pardoned the prior the interest on 60 shillings which he had borrowed from the Jews, and in 1291 the prior's goods at Stanmore were valued at 10 shillings, and land and rents in Wotton at 13s 4d. It is referred to in the early 14th century, but according to the court rolls of manor of Harrow in 1535, St Gregory's had ceased to maintain a cell at Bentley many years earlier. The first Priory was reported by Druett in his book, The Stanmores and Harrow Weald Through the Ages, to stand further downhill than the present building. He places it in the area of Priory House on Clamp Hill, with the chapel standing apart on Harrow Weald Common. However, the evidence to substantiate this is inconclusive. It would appear that a small agricultural hamlet existed in the shadow of the Priory Chapel. This Chapel, of which all trace has been lost, is believed to have served the 'city' community that lived on the Weald. Apart from a short list of Priors from this period in The Victoria County History of Middlesex, the only other reference to the Priory is in Chronicle by Matthew Paris who was a monk and chief copyist at St Albans. He mentions under the date 1248 the story 'Of the Miserable Death of the Priory of Bentley'.