When he at length retired to Finchale he seems to have found there the remains of some ancient building, perhaps of a Roman villa, which may have given its name to the place, and which may not only have formed a sufficient residence for the hermit but for the other members of his family who came to reside with him. The site of this dwelling was a little nearer to Durham than is the present Priory, and the lands around were a hunting-ground (the villa may have been a hunting-lodge) belonging to Bishop Ralph Flambard who gave Godric permission to settle here, so that possession must have been taken before 1128, the date of the Bishop’s death. Adjoining to this residence he seems to have built a wooden chapel which was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and about twenty years after he built another of stone which was consecrated by Bishop William de St. Barbara, dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre and St. John Baptist, and regularly served by a priest from Durham. As well as the many self-imposed mortifications he endured, he was much troubled by the serpents with which the place abounded, but which, at his command, departed; but if we may believe the equally veracious story of "the loathly worm of Lambton," a witch as well as a saint had a hand in that achievement. Godric, who was bedridden with rheumatism, the result of his senile excesses, for eight years before his death, died in 1170, during the episcopacy of Bishop Hugh de Puiset, or Pudsey, who appears to have personally interested himself in the Finchale oratory; and under his directions two monks from the Durham convent, named Henry and Reginald, took up their residence in the place. In 1180 Pudsey confirmed the priory of Durham in their possession of Finchale and added lands and other benefactions to those already granted by Flambard; and thus no doubt the attention of his son Henry was drawn to the place.