PLACE NAME
Dunster Priory, a former Benedictine monastery established in Dunster, Somerset in about 1100. The town’s first church was built by William de Mohun who gave it along with several manors and two fisheries to Bath Abbey. The priory, which was situated just north of the church, also became a cell of the abbey. The place name of Dunster, recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086, derives from Torre meaning tor, or rocky hill, though the origin of the prefix is uncertain. It could derive from the Old English dūn meaning ‘hill’, which would make it something of a tautology, or it also be a reference to a Saxon noble called Dunn who, before the Norman conquest, owned land in the parochial area. In which case, it would literally translate as Dunn’s rocky hill. The priory church is still in use as the Priory Church of St George. Like many of the roads on the St Helier’s estate this is named after British monasteries and abbeys in remembrance of the area’s historic ownership by Westminster Abbey. The road names are in alphabetical order, of which Aberconway Road in the north west of the estate is first.
