This was an establishment of a very different kind. It was designed only as a place of refuge for persons afflicted with severe or contagious diseases, and was termed in legal documents _Domus Leprosorum Jacobi_, or as _Maladria Sancti Jacobi_.[30] It stood outside the town, east of the road which led from Saint John’s Hospital to Quatford. Its founders were, probably, the community of the Borough of Bridgnorth, and such an establishment may be considered as one of the sanitary measures which they adopted for the benefit of the town. Many of the large towns in England had establishments of this nature in the thirteenth century; and there is evidence to prove, that the Leper House of Saint James, in Bridgnorth, was founded previously to 1224; for on the 22nd of September of that year, Henry III., who was then at Bridgnorth Castle, issued the following mandate to Hugh Fitz Robert, “Know that for the reverence of God, and for the health of our soul, and the soul of the Lord King John our Father, we have granted to the Leprous Brethren of the Hospital of Saint James, at Bruges, that they may have one horse, daily plying in our Forest of Morf, to collect dry stumps and dead wood for their fires, until we come of age.” There is also a very early charter of the thirteenth century, now in the possession of T. C. Whitmore, Esq., of Apley, bearing the Seal of the Hospital of Saint James, by which it would appear that this society was constituted without any superior of its own body, and that it acted under the guidance, and with the consent of the good men of the town, and that its members were of both sexes. (_Antiquities of Shropshire, Vol. 1, p. 349._) [30] Mr. Eyton mentions that there was a Maladrerie near Bridgnorth of older date than this, being described in deeds as “Vetus Maladria.” It was situated on the Oldbury side of the town, and abutted on two water-courses, called “Reymund’s Ditch,” and the “Ditch towards Aldebur.”—_Charter at Apley Park._