Chapter XVI: Queenborough Castle and Its Builder, William of Wykeham 269 (5)

From this time to the Dissolution, the architectural history of the house is almost a blank, the only record of importance being a licence, dated 24th April, 1319, to the abbess “to fell 300 oaks in her wood of Hainault, for repair of the Church of her Abbey and divers others houses of the Abbey, which are in ruins.”[28]

[28] Cal. Pat. Rolls (1317–1321), p. 327.

The abbey was surrendered into the hands of the King’s Commissioners on 14th November, 1539, by Dorothy Barley, the abbess, and thirty nuns. The house was then valued at £1,084 6s. 2¼d. gross and £862 12s. 5½d. net, making it the third richest in annual revenue of the English nunneries.

In 1541, the destruction of the buildings was begun. Among the accounts of James Needham (Surveyor General to Henry VIII.), preserved at the Bodleian Library,[29] is a lengthy document relating to the undermining and casting down of the abbey church and cloister, of which the following is an extract:—

From Sunday xix. day of June to Sunday xvii. of July, 33rd Henry
VIII. Payments made & payd for o^r Souvraigne lorde the King for
work done by his graces comandement in undermynding & casting
downe the late Abbey Chyrche of Barking.

_Carpenters._—Working not onely in taking downe and breking uppe
the bordes of the cloyster w^t other tymber & not thus only
working but also making the handebarowes & whele barowes & in
like manr. helmyng of pyckaxes & other necessares for the myners
& laborers to occupie.

_Myners._—Working not onleye in undermynding and casting downe
ij. Rounde Towres but also taking uppe the benches in the
cloyster & in lyke man^r providing of the ffayrest coyne stones &
other coyne stone for the loding of lighters, to be ymployed at
the Kinges man. of Darteforde.

_Comyn Laborers._—Working not onelye in ridding & clering oute
the ffayrest & best coyne stone, casting the rubbyshe a syde &
not thus working onely but also making & mynding of the hey ways
& in lyke manr. leveling the grownde for the lande carr. of the
said stone from the late abbey to the water syde.

[29] Bodl. Lib., Cod. Rawl. D. 782.

The account is continued month by month, with little variation in terms, and concludes on 10th December, 1542. In August, 1541, the carpenters were engaged in “taking downe the tymber in the steple,” and the miners “in undermynding the steple and other places of the late Abbey Chyrch.” The lead of the roof was employed in repairs to Greenwich Palace in 1541.

The site and the demesne lands of the abbey were granted by Henry VIII. to Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, for life.[30] On his death in 1550, they were given by Edward VI. to Edward, Lord Clinton, the patent bearing date 27th May 6th Edward VI. (1552).[31]

[30] Pub. Rec. Office, Particulars for Grants, 1515.

[31] _Ibid._

The earliest view of the site of the abbey is a drawing by Mr. Smart Lethieullier,[32] dating from about 1720–30, preserved in the British Museum.[33] It shows that, at that time, little more of the abbey remained above ground than is at present in existence, the only notable difference being the presence of the north-east gate of the precinct. In 1724 he carried out some excavations on the site of the abbey church, and produced a plan purporting to show the results, which was subsequently published by Lysons.[34] Another original drawing, somewhat different in detail, is in the British Museum.[35] Both plans are, however, so hopelessly inaccurate as to be almost valueless.

[32] Smart Lethieullier (1701–1760), F.R.S., F.S.A., of Aldersbrook, in Little Ilford (where he lies buried), was in his day a well-known antiquary and collector.

[33] Add. MSS. 27,350, fo. 123.

[34] _Environs of London_, iv., facing p. 71 (1796).

[35] Add. MSS. 27,350, fo. 124.

_Photograph by A. P. Wire._]

_Photograph by A. P. Wire._]

The limits of the precinct at Barking cannot now be fixed with any precision, but the general lines are not difficult to ascertain. The great gatehouse probably stood in the neighbourhood of the present Heath Street or the Wharf; but no trace or record of its position is known to exist. The Cemetery Gate, which still exists, and is now commonly known as the “Fire Bell Gate” or “Curfew Gate,” was probably first erected in the time of abbess Sybilla Felton (1349–1419) and subsequently reconstructed (_c._ 1460). The first mention of it appears in a Papal Indult of 1400, when the abbess and her nuns were granted permission “to have mass or other divine offices celebrated by their own or other fit persons in the Oratory called Rodlofte, situate upon the walls of the cemetery of their church; in which Oratory is a certain cross and to which a great multitude of people resorts.”[36] A little later, in the time of abbess Catherine de la Pole (1433–1473), it served as the belfry of the parish church, before the erection of the present western tower. The parishioners petitioned the abbess to be allowed to hang a new bell above the chapel of the “Holy Rood lofte atte gate” and to repair the roof. They were allowed eventually to hang the bell, but were not permitted to do the other repairs, evidently for fear of weakening the rights of the convent over the structure.[37]

[36] _Cal. of Papal Letters_, v., p. 333.

[37] Lyson’s _Environs_, iv., pp. 71–72 (1796).

The gate, as it now stands, is a square embattled building, two stages high, with diagonal buttresses at the corners and an octagonal turret. With the exception of the parapet, it is unrestored, and is pierced on the east and west by a large four-centered arch, above which is a small canopied niche with an ogee-shaped head, much decayed. The second stage of the gate is occupied by the chapel of the Holy Rood, originally lit by four three-light windows, one on each side. The eastern is now the only one left open, the rest being blocked with brickwork.

Set in the east wall, below the window, is a remarkably fine carved rood of stone, with the Virgin and St. John, of twelfth century date. The carving of the drapery is unusually free and the figures well designed. The cross itself is of the “raguly” form, to be seen in some of the St. Albans paintings, and the ground-work is diapered fretty in broad interlaced bands.

At a distance of about 350 feet further north there stood another gate, destroyed about 1885.

The Roding undoubtedly formed the boundary on the western side. The modern mill now standing close to Barking Wharf marks, in all probability, the site of the monastic building; while a narrow watercourse, branching off from the river above the abbey precinct, preserves the line of the cutting which fed the great culvert or sewer of the convent with water.

Owing to the treatment of the building at the Dissolution, when the walls and towers were undermined and cast down, the remains of the church itself are not extensive. Practically the whole length of the south wall was, however, retained, up to a certain level, owing to its forming the boundary of the parish churchyard. In addition to this, a portion of the west front, with the walls and foundations of the whole of the east end, have, fortunately, been preserved, so that the complete plan has been recovered.

The twelfth century church (representing the first rebuilding after the Conquest) consisted of a long nave with aisles and two western towers; shallow transepts, with one apsidal eastern chapel in each arm; and an aisled presbytery of five bays, terminating, in all probability, in three graduated apses, as at Shaftesbury and Chertsey abbeys.

_Drawn by A. W. Clapham._]

Traces were discovered of the southern of these apses terminating the south aisle.

The bays of the presbytery were unusually narrow, measuring only 12 feet from centre to centre. According to some original pencil notes by Mr. Smart Lethieullier,[38] the columns of the arcades were cylindrical; and, judging from the existing remains of the south wall, the aisles were vaulted in stone. One complete bay of this wall and portions of those adjoining remain standing to about 5 feet above the floor level. The responds supporting the vault are rectangular projections and were apparently once finished with a half-column against the face and two sideshafts. The wall between was recessed for a wall arcade of three arches, resting on small shafts, 5 inches in diameter. The moulded base of one of these remains _in situ_. It is of Binstead stone, and appears to date from about 1150. The axis of the Norman presbytery deviates south of that of the nave, a feature which is still further accentuated in the later eastern additions.

[38] Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 27,350, fo. 124.

About the beginning of the thirteenth century, the east end of the twelfth century church with its three apses was pulled down and an important extension planned in its place. The object of this rebuilding was, apparently, to provide a more honourable position for the shrine of St. Ethelburga, together with those of her successors, St. Hildelitha and St. Wulfhilda. The new portions may be compared to those eastern extensions, erected at the same time, for a similar purpose, at St. Albans and Winchester. The planning of the saint’s chapel at Barking presents certain features in common with both these buildings, together with one marked divergence. At both St. Albans and Winchester, the chapel is of the same width as the presbytery and aisles; but, at Barking, the width is reduced by 22 feet, the eastern arm being 64 feet 6 inches and the saint’s chapel 42 feet. Access to it was obtained by carrying the Norman aisles one bay further east. Mr. Lethieullier uncovered the foundations of a massive wall terminating the presbytery on the east, which must have belonged to this rebuilding and was probably carried up in the form of an open arcade supporting the east gable of the high roofs.

The saint’s chapel was divided by columns into three equal aisles, three bays long from east to west; and, from the centre aisle, a lady chapel projected two bays still further east. The south wall of the saint’s chapel remains standing for some three feet above the floor level; and in the south-east angle is the circular base, in Reigate stone, of a vaulting-shaft, with “holdwater” moulding and chamfered plinth, all in fairly good preservation. The centre aisle of this chapel was probably appropriated to the feretory of St. Ethelburga, while the sides may have been occupied by those of St. Hildelitha and St. Wulfhilda.

The lady chapel was excavated, some thirty-seven years ago. The walls, some 3 or 4 feet high, remain on the east and south sides. The bases of vaulting-shafts still exist, in the angles at the east end. Three interments were found at the west end, one being in a chalk vault.

A list of interments of abbesses and others, dating from about 1420, is preserved at the Bodleian Library; the names of the abbesses are as follows:—

1. Dame Yolente de Sutton qe gist devant l’auter nostre dame de
Salue.

2. Dame Maude de Levelaunde qe gist apres lavaunt dce Yolente.

3. Dame Maud la file le Roy Henry qe gist en la chapele de Salue.

4. Dame Maud la file le Roy John qe gist en la chapele de Salue.

5. Dame Alianore de Westone gist devant la fertre de seint
Alburgh.

6. Dame Anne de Veer gist devant le fertre seint Hildelithe.

7. Dame Maud de Grey gist devant l’auter de la Resurexion.

8. Dame Alis de Merton gist en une arche devers la cimterre.

9. Dame Isabelle de Basing gist en une arche a la fenestre.

10. Dame Alimie gist en l’arche devant le haut auter qe ad vii.
psaumes en genulaut e messe capitale one kyrie par vers et
hominum plasmator et offiz.

11. Dame Marie soer seint Thomas le Martye gist en l’arch devant
l’auter et Seint Paul en la yle.

12. Dame Mabile qe fist dedier l’eglise gist en l’arche apres.

13. Dame Maud Mountague gist en quer.

14. Dame Isabella Mountague soer l’avant dite dame Maud gist de
la parte la prioresse en quer.

15. Dame Christine de Valoyns gist en mylieu del chapitre en la
pere du marbre.

16. Dame Katherine Suttone gist en la chapele de nostre dame de
Salue en l’arche.

17. Dame Christine de Bosham gist a l’entree del chapitre.

18. Dame Maud Mountague gist en l’arche devant le haut auter
encontre la hous del sextrie.

The chapel of “Notre Dame de Salut” is probably the eastern chapel, which would identify the interments discovered as those of Abbesses Maud (_c._ 1200), daughter of Henry II., Maud de Loveland (_c._ 1276), and Yolande de Sutton (1341). The remains found in the chalk vault probably belonged to the first of these. The note concerning Mabel de Bosham (1217–1247) approximately dates the completion of the eastern portion of the church.

The transept was internally 100 feet long by 31 feet wide. The core of the walls of the southern arm is still standing for some few feet above the floor level, but most of the facing is gone. At the south-east corner is the chamfered base of an angle-pier, with traces of benches against the south and west walls. From the eastern side projected a small apsidal chapel, slightly horse-shoe in form and the inner face of the walls retaining much of the original plastering.

The central tower was destroyed in 1541, but Mr. Lethieullier found some portions of the piers remaining in 1724. His rough sketch preserves the plan of one of them—the north-east. It was rectangular, with a semi-circular respond to the choir arcade, and rectangular projections with side shafts to the tower and aisle arches.

The nave with its aisles was 165 feet 6 inches long by 64 feet 6 inches wide. There were, apparently, ten bays to the arcades, with two western towers, making eleven bays in all. The south wall towards the parish churchyard remains standing about 5 feet high for the six eastern bays and is of somewhat unusual construction. The face of the wall remains in places, and there are sufficient traces of three responds of the aisle vault to show that the nave bays were 14 feet from centre to centre.

The seventh bay from the east was occupied by an elaborate doorway communicating with the parish churchyard. Only the base remains, projecting some 6 feet from the external face of the aisle wall. It was evidently of twelfth century work, with a large arch of three or four recessed orders, and was probably surmounted by a lofty stone gable of the type to be seen at Kirkstall, Brinkburn, Nun Monkton, and elsewhere. Portions of the bases of the side shafts remain on the east jamb; but, below this level, a plain raking plinth has been added at a later date, following the line of the recessed orders. A step crossing the porch proves that, in later mediæval times, there was a descent from the churchyard to the floor level of the nave.

The three bays separating this porch from the south-west tower have quite disappeared, and the foundations of the south-west tower are somewhat fragmentary. The south-west angle of a great clasping buttress, however, remains, projecting some 8 feet in advance of the south aisle wall. The core of the wall has been removed, only the outer face remaining. The two “round towers” mentioned in Needham’s accounts probably refer to these western towers; but, as the foundations are rectangular, a circular or octagonal upper stage is the most reasonable interpretation of the expression he uses.

The total internal length of the church was 337 feet 6 inches, making it the longest in the County of Essex of which there is any record. It was some 24 feet longer than Rochester, and 13 feet shorter than Chester Cathedral. The area within the walls was about 21,700 square feet.

The cloister, about 99 feet square, lay upon the north side of the nave, as at St. Radegund’s (Cambridge), St. Helen’s (London), and other houses of Benedictine nuns. Indeed, in monastic houses in the neighbourhood of London, this position is almost more the rule than the exception. The chapter-house, a rectangular structure, 60 feet 6 inches long by 23 feet 6 inches wide, projected from about the centre of the east walk. In the chapter-house were probably buried most of the early abbesses, the last being Christina de Valoyns (_c._ 1214) and Christina de Bosham (_c._ 1258), both mentioned in the list of interments already quoted.

Adjoining the chapter-house on the north, and continuing the eastern cloister range, was a building 53 feet long by 24 feet wide, divided into two unequal portions by the passage leading to the infirmary. In the smaller and southern of these, a small fireplace of early sixteenth century date had been inserted in the east wall. The jambs were of brick and the hearth was laid with plain tiles 9 inches square, with a Reigate stone curb.

The warming house forms the north end of the building. The fireplace, which is in the east wall and is some 4 feet wide, has a hearth set with tiles on edge and traces of a stone curb. In front is an outer hearth, projecting 2 feet 6 inches from the face of the wall and also paved with tiles set on edge.

The frater flanked the cloister on the north side, while the western side was occupied by a long building, measuring 166 feet by 24 feet wide, on the first floor of which was the dormitory. This position (west of the cloister) is of very unusual occurrence, though it is to be found at Durham, Worcester, and in a few other instances. The southern end of this building, adjoining the church, has quite gone; but, further north, the base of the outer or west wall was traced to the end of the building and the northern wall duly located. In two places, one course of ashlar facing in Caen stone was found _in situ_, fixing the date of the structure as late in the twelfth century.

There is little doubt that the ground floor was vaulted, in two spans, with a central row of columns, but no trace of these or of external buttresses was found. The twelfth century piers and capitals in the north aisle of the parish church were undoubtedly brought from the abbey; and, in all probability, they belonged to this building.

The rere-dorter, a building of the same date as the dorter, was situated a short distance to the west, on the line of the great culvert.

The infirmary lay to the north-east of the chapter-house and was approached by a passage starting some 12 feet north of that building. This passage ran in a north-easterly direction, the walls, 2 feet 3 inches thick, remaining just above the floor level. A considerable portion of plain tile paving was found _in situ_. The arrangements of the infirmary building are somewhat obscure, as half the site is covered by the playground of the adjoining school, and could not be examined.

The great hall stood approximately north and south. It was 38 feet wide and a long stretch of the west wall was uncovered, terminating in a massive square pier adjoining the angle-buttress of the chapter-house. This probably represented the original southern termination of the hall; but, in the fifteenth century, it appears to have been shortened by a few feet, and traces of this later end were found. At the point of its junction with the west wall, a small portion of a tile-on-edge hearth was discovered. The opposite or east wall of the hall formed also the west wall of the infirmary chapel, the floor of which was about one foot lower than that in the hall.

The chapel was a fifteenth century building, 19 feet wide and about 45 feet long, though the east wall (being under the school-house garden) was not precisely located. The south wall was heavily buttressed, being divided into three bays. At the south-west corner, a large angular buttress impinged on the area once covered by the original infirmary hall. The chapel was paved with tiles; but, though the screeding and bed on which they lay was practically intact, every tile had gone. The stone altar-step was found _in situ_, but only a few fragments of the north wall remained.

From the north-east corner of the warming house, a wall was found running in an easterly direction and evidently communicating with the infirmary hall. It was apparently the south wall of a small hall, about 48 feet long, lying east and west, of which the north side had been completely destroyed. At the west end was a screen-wall and, immediately within it, there were traces of a large hearth. It is probable that this building was the misericorde, which is generally found in direct communication with the infirmary.

It is unfortunate that the position of the infirmary group lying partially under the playground should render its complete examination impossible, as the walls of these buildings were found to be in a better state of preservation than those of any other part of the abbey.

—A. W. C.

ABBOT’S HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD,
AND ITS PREDECESSORS

XIV.

ABBOT’S HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD, AND ITS PREDECESSORS.

The close alliance which exists between architecture and national history is a commonplace, and a review of its connection in each of the several departments into which it is divided is an unfailing and fruitful source of study. The larger classifications of domestic, ecclesiastical, and military building will always absorb the energies of our chief writers, and in them we can see the more important and national movements portrayed, and in no small measure explained. But there are many other ways of pursuing this interesting inquiry, and one of the most attractive is by the examination of a single type of building allocated to a special purpose, which can be traced through succeeding periods, and in which we can see the effect of the larger changes step by step. These sidepaths of architectural history differ from one another in their relative interest and importance, and some lead us only a certain distance, having been deserted by those generations for whom they have had no further use—the blind alleys of a former pilgrimage. Others, however, continue with us to the present day, and furnish in their history a complete and connected story of ancient and modern times.

One of the most complete series of buildings in our own country is furnished by those familiar groups of cottages which we know as almshouses, and which persist even at the present time, impatient though we be of the early traditions with which they are linked. The claims that the almshouse makes upon our attention and our interest are very many. Yet beyond the occasional sketch or monograph, and the modest note in a town or county history, these beautiful buildings have received little of the study and appreciation which they deserve.

From the time of the Norman kings and in almost all the succeeding years the almshouse, or its ancient precursor the hospital, has handed down to us the most charming specimens of the domestic architecture of each period. More than that, the almshouse, being essentially a home for a number of people, furnishes us with examples of the grouping of several units of building and of the methods of composition and arrangement which were successively in vogue. Nor was it merely a domestic structure even after the secularising influence of the monastic dissolution, for in the majority of cases it had its chapel—reminding us of the private chapels which were once in every mansion—and again it partook of the nature of a public building with its common rooms and dining hall. The very nature of the almshouse and the perpetuity of its endowment was a safeguard against the careless destruction to which private property is so often subject, and the humble station of its occupants averted the ruthless hand of the “improver” until the lamented advent of the Charity Commissioners. This same humble conservatism has preserved for us in many cases that most notable mediæval idea of community of living, which was of the essence of monasticism, and the little families or societies, each with its warden, brethren, and sisters, have not yet been wholly swept away, but survive here and there in the very homes which saw their first gathering. With the persistence of the idea remain also many of the objects which were most intimately connected with its ritual or ceremonial: the courtyard with its gatehouses to isolate and defend it, the cloister and the chapel for common life and worship, beside such insignia and furniture as its gowns and corporate seal, its plate, stained glass, pictures, and books. In a hundred different details we can recognise the wonderful story of the past which has not quite died in the midst of the present. Here is the history of an important institution which, in its successive modification or development, and in the gradual secularisation of its early character, provides a running commentary on English social life. It is also the history of an interesting type of building which in the beauty and variety of its forms provides a significant index to the changing modes of architecture and the allied arts.

The pre-Reformation hospital, maison-dieu, bedehouse, or almshouse has had a careful and generally well-informed historian in Miss R. M. Clay, whose work entitled _English Mediæval Hospitals_ was published by Messrs. Methuen in their Antiquary’s Library. Miss Clay’s work is valuable in its examination of the typical life of the hospital and of its status as compared with the monastic institutions of the Church; but beyond the interesting glimpses which she gives into the customs of this earlier period we are still without a proper comparative study of the whole subject. As is so often the case with a settled institution of this kind, the architectural problem contains the key to many outstanding features of its constitution, and until a complete collection of plans is available we shall not have the material for an exhaustive history. Happily, however, enough is known to allow an intelligible outline to be drawn, in which it is probable that most of the examples will be found ultimately to have their place. In the present paper I shall attempt to set down this outline only in its barest form, making of it a slight introduction to a note on the Jacobean hospital of Archbishop Abbot at Guildford, and a further comment on the types which followed the buildings here illustrated.

The aim and purpose of the mediæval almshouse—to afford rest and help to the needy traveller, the sick, and the aged—was an essentially Christian idea, and was from the first definitely associated with the Church. And, indeed, if it had not been officially identified with the Church it could not have avoided the influence and direction of the great spiritual organisation that absorbed the generous impulses of the period. The monastic orders themselves were at first the chief vehicles for charity, and the giving of alms being one of the first principles of Christian life, the nobles and wealthy ecclesiastics seconded the efforts of the monks by their liberal gifts and constantly open tables, as we may read in the pages of John Stow and other writers. But at the same time there were instituted societies of the poor alone, following in a measure the monastic orders, and endowed by individual philanthropists. It was not necessary for these men to subscribe to the vow of poverty (though sometimes required of them), for they were already destitute, and dependent entirely upon the charity of their founders, and no doubt this very circumstance made their foundations have a more deeply religious aspect in the eyes of the mediæval Church. Thus we find the first hospitals formed into small companies of brethren, each with a master or chaplain elected from their number, each clothed with a special gown and under some rule of religious observance.

F. T. Dollman in his _Examples of Domestic Architecture_ (1858) was one of the earliest writers to point out the two chief models upon which the hospital plan was formed. The original type, and that more convenient for the sick and disabled, followed the plan of the monastic infirmary—an aisled hall with a chapel generally at the east end, looking for all practical purposes like the aisled nave of a church with its chancel. The aisles, or, where they were absent, the two sides of the nave, formed two dormitories along which were ranged the beds for the sick, who could thus hear and enjoy the services without rising from their couch or passing the door of their little cubicles. In large hospitals the nave was divided into two floors, the chapel being taken the total height of both, and being divided from them by a double screen. This may be conveniently termed the dormitory plan, from its central and distinguishing feature. The hall itself was not, however, an isolated building, but, like its prototype the infirmary, had its own outbuildings, its kitchen and stores, occasionally its cloister, and sometimes a separate master’s house.

The second method of arrangement was based upon the Carthusian plan of separate dwellings or cells, generally grouped around a cloister or courtyard, and this proved not only the most useful provision for inmates who were not bedridden, but a popular compromise, as it were, in that it afforded a way of dispensing with the stricter monastic idea without losing the benefits of communal life. Thus arose the recognised almshouse plan of post-Reformation days, which persists to our own time.

The dormitory plan seems at first sight a somewhat primitive method, and the thirteenth-century building of St. Mary’s Hospital, Chichester, where the almspeople still live under the one wide roof of their great hall, is looked upon as a singular survival from another age. The idea, no doubt, in its communal aspect, is a distinctly mediæval one, but a little reflection will show that it was also a perfectly sound one. Our hospitals for the sick of the present day have their wards with a large number of beds side by side, and the up-to-date Rowton lodging-house is composed of long apartments divided by dwarf partitions into cubicles not dissimilar to those of the ancient hospitals. Mr. Edward S. Prior has long shown that the Middle Ages had their own very sound ideas on sanitation, and there is no reason to believe that these lofty infirmaries were not perfectly clean and wholesome. For the sick, at least, they formed practically the only satisfactory arrangement, and we know that in many foundations the sisterhood was the nursing staff for the aged and bedridden poor. The greater number of these infirmary halls have been destroyed. Wigston’s Hospital, Leicester (1513), must have been a building of wonderful size and beauty with its two storeys and chapel to the east. Its sister establishment, Trinity Hospital (“The Newarke”) reconstituted in 1355, the buildings of which still exist, included a dean, 12 secular canons, 12 vicars, 3 clerks, 6 choristers, 50 poor men, 50 poor women, and 10 nurses. Examples of surviving halls are to be found in the Bede House, Higham Ferrers (1423); St. John’s Hospital, Northampton (founded 1140); Browne’s Hospital, Stamford (c. 1485); St. John’s Hospital, Sherborne (1437); St. Mary Magdalene’s, Glastonbury (thirteenth century); St. Nicholas, Salisbury (1214); St. Saviour’s, Wells (1436). The beautiful hospital of St. Giles, Norwich, called also the Great Hospital (founded 1246), with its cloister and master’s house, is attached to the church of St. Helen, part of the latter being divided up into wards after the ancient manner, the women in the Eagle ward (the chancel) to the east, and the men in the nave towards the west. Browne’s Hospital, Stamford, has a fine “audit” room over the dormitory which occupies the usual position west of the chapel. (See plan, p. 221.)

_Drawn by W. H. Godfrey._]

The examples of the second type of plan—the group of separate dwellings round a courtyard—date chiefly from the fifteenth century and onwards. Courtyards and quadrangular forms of building had, of course, been connected with the dormitory type, for this was the recognised method of mediæval planning (_cf._ Browne’s Hospital, Stamford, and St. Cross, Winchester), but the new quadrangle was a departure in principle from the older plan, and, as noted above, it followed the establishments of the Carthusian order. An early instance of a new foundation with quadrangle and cloister walk is the well-known hospital at Ewelme (Oxon), founded by the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk—the latter a granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer—in 1434. Here the almshouses are situated close to the parish church, to which they are connected by a passage at the tower, and, as the south aisle was specially allocated to the brethren, the presence of a separate chapel was rendered unnecessary. The second of the two foundations connected with the Great Hospital of St. Cross seems to have been responsible for the beautiful stone cottages which still stand, having been probably erected by Cardinal Beaufort in 1445, and here the noble church of the older hospital performs the function of the chapel. With St. Cross should be compared such foundations as the Vicar’s Close at Wells (which has many similarities to the almshouse or hospital) and the colleges of chantry priests, one at least of which—the college at Cobham in Kent (1362)—was in 1597 converted into an almshouse proper under the title of New College. Occasionally the quadrangle was so small as to be scarcely more than an “area” in the building, each room of which was the home of a different occupant. Such is Ford’s Hospital, Coventry (1529), commonly called the Grey Friars, a specimen of Gothic woodwork which has often been illustrated on account of its great richness. Timber-built almshouses are not infrequent, and the Earl of Leicester’s fine hospital at Warwick (1571) has a quadrangular plan of two storeys, each with a graceful cloister of wooden arcading.

_Drawn by W. H. Godfrey._]

These hospitals with their separate dwellings show many minor differences of plan. A dining hall, a “great chamber” or common room, and a kitchen, were often included in the range of buildings or were annexed to it. The gatehouse or simple gateway, the master’s rooms, the muniment room, and the outside staircases, gave opportunity for variation in grouping; and the hospital chapel, when present, invested the whole block with its chief distinction. At Warwick the hospital has the use of the old Guild Chapel over the west town-gate that still survives.

The influence of the Reformation was most decidedly in favour of those institutions which, like the last considered, adopted only semi-monastic customs. Prejudice against the monasteries had sunk too deep to allow of the older establishments remaining unharmed, and many were reconstituted so as to conform to the later ideas. The independence of thought fostered by the Reformation, and the individualism which directed the Renaissance, both made for the confirmation and extension of the system of separate dwellings. Occasionally we get a reversion to the old type, as in the curious little building of Beamsley Hospital, Yorks (1593), which is circular, the chapel being in the middle and lighted by a clerestory, while seven cubicles surrounding it form an ambulatory, very much like the circular aisle of the nave to the Temple Church. (See plan, p. 221.) Exceptions though there may be, the principle of community of interest remained sufficiently familiar to the people in their trade guilds and companies to prevent their dispensing with the hospital idea and substituting what in modern times we call outdoor relief. So the incorporated hospital continued, and quadrangles were still planned, but now in the manner of the courtyards of the rapidly advancing domestic architecture of the day.

_Plan by W. H. Godfrey._]

The dissolution of the monasteries had made the necessity for almshouses even greater than it had been before, and we find that the problem of the poor had assumed serious proportions by the reign of Elizabeth, and led to a great increase in the number of hospitals. They continued to become augmented, and the records of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are crowded with the names of the new foundations. The Whitgift Hospital, Croydon (1597); Jesus Hospital, Lyddington (1602); Sackville College, East Grinstead (1608); Weekley Hospital, Northants (1611); Chipping Campden (1612); the three hospitals of the Earl of Northampton—Trinity Hospital, Greenwich (1613); Trinity Hospital, Castle Rising (1614); and Trinity Hospital, Clun (1614)—Coningsby Hospital, Hereford (1614); Eyre’s Hospital, Salisbury (1617); Abbot’s Hospital, Guildford (1619); Wyatt’s Hospital, Godalming (1622); Penrose Almshouses, Barnstaple (1627); and Jesus Hospital, Bray (1627)—these are a few of the interesting buildings of about the time of James I., and the Guildford example is in many ways typical of them all, although the contemporary enthusiasm for design found in them wide opportunities for variation. Archbishop Abbot had before him the fine example of his predecessor, John Whitgift, whose hospital at Croydon attracted wide notice, if we are to believe the contemporary testimony of John Stow, and probably Whitgift’s work inspired many of the later benefactors to imitate him. The two buildings are curiously similar in plan, although there is a marked difference in their architectural treatment, the work at Guildford being more pretentious than that of the earlier hospital. In both cases the administrative block or rather that containing the principal and common apartments, was placed on the side opposite to the entrance with its gatehouse, the cottages of the pensioners occupying the rest of the courtyard. In this they were following in effect the usual plan of the larger country houses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the same rooms being provided in the main block as were required for private occupation, while the usual quarters of the domestic staff are here transferred to the almspeople. The common hall or dining-room occupied a position near the centre—at Croydon to the left, and at Guildford to the right of the passage and archway into the gardens. In each building the kitchen is placed in the extreme left-hand corner, and the chapel in a similar position to the right. The house of the warden or master, however, is at Croydon placed over the common hall and kitchen, and contains the “audience” or great chamber as its principal apartment, whereas at Guildford the master occupies a part of the street front, the great chamber (called here the library) being placed, as before, over the hall.

Abbot’s Hospital provides for some twenty-five inmates, including the master, as compared with forty at Whitgift; but, as already remarked, it is more ambitious in its architectural treatment. The quadrangle is entered by a fine brick tower with four octagonal turrets, in the centre of the street front. The tower is of three storeys, and like the rest of the building is of brick with stone dressings, the turrets being taken up a good height above the parapet, and finished with excellent lead-covered cupolas, and vanes. The two opposite lateral blocks which enclose the courtyard are projected towards the street to form wings, and are finished with Dutch gables. The windows on the ground and first floors vary from four to five lights in width and are divided by transomes. The quadrangle itself is quietly treated; a shallow stepped gable on the side opposite to the tower gives space for a clock and a tablet below is inscribed with the name of the founder, while an octagonal cupola is raised above the roof. Perhaps the finest external features are the cut brick chimney-stacks with separate octagonal shafts and finely moulded caps and bases. The internal work in the chief rooms and in the master’s house is of a sumptuous character, and points to the fact that Archbishop Abbot—like Whitgift before him—intended as much to leave a “monument of his own time” behind him as a noble work of charity. The Jacobean fan-treatment of the doorways is very well executed, and all the woodwork is substantial and well made. Both the hall and the great chamber above—the latter of which is panelled—have good chimneypieces and overmantels, and there is much excellent furniture.

In this self-contained and well-appointed building is housed a little community which differs very slightly from those of the pre-Reformation hospitals. The ideas of the early part of the seventeenth century have relaxed the severity of the monastic rule somewhat, and have given to the architectural features much of the new character of the Renaissance. Enough, however, of the old conception, both of establishment and of fabric, remains to link it definitely with its predecessors, and to witness to the continuity of the old conception of a charitable refuge for the poor.

_Drawn by Sydney A. Newcombe._]

Further illustration of this fact can be adduced from the large number of similar examples found in the succeeding periods. In whatever age the almshouse was built the idea was recognised as perennially “old-fashioned,” and the style of its architecture is therefore inevitably of a somewhat earlier character than seems warranted by its actual date. Each builder in turn raised his building intentionally in a somewhat antique manner, and as the seventeenth century advanced the Jacobean detail gave way very slowly before the new fashions of the later Renaissance. The gatehouse disappeared, but the gateway remained; the street front and its two wings assumed the Queen Anne treatment of heavy cornice and hipped roofs. The cloistered arcade, which in Christ’s Hospital, Abingdon (1553), and Penrose Almshouses, Barnstaple (1627), had been placed in front of the buildings, reverted to the manner of Ewelme (1434) and surrounded the inner court as at Bromley College (1666) and Morden College, Blackheath (1695). The chapel was placed generally in the centre of the farther side of the square, and projected from it, or stood alone at the end of the perspective of two lines of cottages as at Trinity Ground, Mile End (1695). The simple row of almshouses, too, which existed at all periods for smaller buildings, was developed and often cleverly grouped on either side of the central feature of the chapel, as at Colfe’s Almshouses, Lewisham (1664). The variations in the style of the architecture are unending, and numerous features such as heraldic shields, sundials, cupolas, stone terraces, stained glass, statuary, furniture, are scattered about them, here in profusion, there in fewer number, but none the less tasteful and in keeping. A few examples occur to one at random in addition to those just mentioned:—Ingram’s Hospital, York (1640); Smyth’s Almshouses, Maidenhead (1659); Lucas’s Hospital, Wokingham (1663); Corsham Almshouses (1668); Kirkleatham Hospital, Yorks (1676); Jesus Hospital, Newcastle (1681); Collegium Matrarum, Salisbury (1682); Winwood’s Almshouses, Quainton (1687); Hall’s Almshouses, Bradford-on-Avon (1700); Fishmongers’ Almshouses, Yarmouth (1702); Trinity Almshouses, Salisbury (1702); Collins’s Almshouses, Nottingham (1709); Christ’s Hospital (second building, 1718) and Tompkin’s Almshouses, Abingdon (1733); Somerset Hospital, Petworth (1746); and Millington’s Hospital, Shrewsbury (1748). Several of these names are well-known, and will recall to the reader’s mind the character of the almshouse that obtained until the middle of the eighteenth century. There has been no lack of similar buildings since, but they have suffered from the general decline in the art of building. They have also revived with the renewed interest of the present day in the old methods, and they compete, and will still compete, successfully with the scattered cottage homes which are for the moment in vogue. The virtue in the old ideas, whether in the economy and beauty afforded to the buildings or in the charm and usefulness of the little close community, has not gone away. An institution that has stood the test of 800 years, and has weathered the storms of such varied social changes, is bound to live and flourish for many years to come, and it is to be hoped that the original examples, weatherworn, but with the beauty of age and of their time-honoured usefulness upon them, will be preserved to show the future the triumphs of their modest excellence.

The foregoing is but an imperfect little sketch of a subject which is of wide interest and endless fascination. Sir Christopher Wren well understood the significance of the idea, and with his customary skill he has given us a fine interpretation of its beauty in his Royal Hospital at Chelsea. Here is a good starting point for the Londoner, from which he may trace the story backwards.

—W. H. G.

THE FRIARS AS
BUILDERS

XV.

THE FRIARS AS BUILDERS.

THE LONDON HOUSES OF BLACKFRIARS AND WHITEFRIARS.

The mendicant orders as a factor in the history and development of English Gothic have not only never received the recognition they deserve, but their building activity has been left in the almost complete oblivion to which the iconoclasts of the Reformation did their best to consign it. The general interest in the friars has been centred entirely in their history, in the eventful lives of their founders, and in the vast influence which they exercised upon the main currents of mediæval life. Consequently, while the general reader is well acquainted with the figures of St. Francis or St. Dominic, he is often entirely unaware of any connection between them and their followers on the one hand, and the course of English architecture upon the other.

The nature and aims of the mendicant orders rendered it almost essential for their convents to be placed either in or near the great towns, and the presence of so many quarries of worked stone was a circumstance unlikely to be long neglected by the townsmen of Tudor and Stuart times, whose utilitarianism was no whit less developed than that of the present day. Consequently the continued existence (with one or two exceptions) of any fragment of friars’ architecture is as purely fortuitous as the survival of any fragment of domestic architecture of the same date.

As a whole the mendicants present so marked a divergence from the older orders of monks and canons that their buildings are stamped with a very definite and striking individuality. These divergences were, indeed, so intimate as to make the study of them essential to the proper understanding of the architecture they produced.

In sharp distinction to the Benedictines or Cistercians, who were continually adding “house to house and field to field,” the friars were forbidden by their rule to own any property. As their name “mendicants” implies, they were to be beggars, receiving alms only in the form of food, shelter, or clothing, the rule of St. Francis expressly prohibiting the acceptance of money or land, and thus in its original simplicity reducing their architectural opportunities to a minimum, or, rather, rendering them non-existent. The severities of the rule were, however, early evaded, the later practice being for the convent and precinct to be vested in some outside authority, such as the Corporation of the town or the Bishop of the diocese, to hold in trust for the friars in perpetuity, thus keeping the letter while breaking the spirit of the rule. How slight a check it was eventually to prove upon their building activities was early evinced by the magnificent convent of San Francesco at Assisi, which rose around the tomb of the founder under the supervision of his immediate successor. Nevertheless, the general system of non-endowment remained largely in force until the end, and in Henry VIII.’s Visitation the majority of friaries returned the estimated annual value of their convent site and buildings as their sole possession.

Considering the fact that at the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friars numbered over two hundred houses in England and Wales, their architectural remains are neither important nor impressive, and in most cases require searching for; but while they in no case display the massive and imposing memorials of the earlier orders, they are nevertheless of no mean interest to the student of mediæval architecture.

Preaching, while pre-eminently the characteristic of the Dominicans, nevertheless figured largely amongst the duties of the other three orders, and was undoubtedly responsible for the imposing dimensions to which many of their churches ultimately attained.

The mendicant orders being primarily preachers, the first building to be erected (especially in England, where the climatic conditions were inimical to regular open-air preaching) was the church built in the main for that object, and consequently as near as possible to the main street. Proximity to the chief thoroughfare bordering their site will be found almost invariably to determine the position of the friars’ church. This is well exemplified in the convents of the London friars: thus the Franciscan church adjoined Newgate Street with the cloister on the north, the Carmelite was approached from Fleet Street with the domestic buildings on the south, and the Austin Friars fronted Broad Street with the cloister again upon the north. It will be seen that the time-honoured custom of placing the cloister and domestic buildings on the south of the nave for protection from the wind is no longer the governing feature of the plan.

In the churches of the English friars a marked peculiarity is at once apparent in the general absence of the transept—a large aisled nave, an aisleless choir with a belfry between, is the usual and typical form. In a few cases, such as the Austin Friars, Warrington, and the Franciscans at Richmond (Yorkshire), a transept is added on the side opposite the domestic buildings, but the presence of both arms of the cross is very rare. In the Irish friaries the one-armed transept is more the rule than the exception, but here again the complete cross is almost unknown.

The nave of the average canons’ or monks’ church is divided into two unequal parts by a solid screen or pulpitum, against which, on the east, stood the choir stalls, occupying two, three, or more bays of the structural nave, the rest being used for processions, chapels, and as a general burial-place for the lesser patrons of the establishment. In the friars’ churches all the available floor-space was required for the congregation, and consequently the stalls were removed into the structural choir, and in place of the solid stone screens of the older orders a steeple was built pierced by two narrow openings at the base, practically shutting the stalls off from the nave.

The finest remaining examples of the English preaching nave are the Austin Friars, London (153 ft. by 83 ft.), and the Dominican Church, Norwich, now St. Andrew’s Hall (124 ft. by 64 ft.). Both are distinguished by great space and openness, the former being amongst the broadest churches in the country.

In the centre of the typical English friars’ church stood the belfry, which formed its most original and distinctive feature. The friars’ tower was apparently a spontaneous innovation amongst the English mendicants, for there is no evidence that it was either borrowed from Continental sources or copied from other orders at home.

It appears to have been customary for each house of friars to have but one great bell, for though there are instances of two being hung in the steeple, yet the friaries of London, according to Stow, had only one each, and it is evident that this peculiarity was largely instrumental in deciding the unusual form which the steeple assumed.

Situated between the choir and the nave, the steeple rested on two parallel walls which ran north and south across the church, and were pierced by two main arches opposite one another opening respectively into the nave and choir; these walls were placed close together, generally some ten feet apart, thus forming an oblong space under the crossing. Between them and high above the arches before mentioned two lesser arches were thrown across the open space (sometimes dying away into the walls and sometimes resting upon corbels projecting from them) to carry the north and south walls of the tower above.

The building in most cases was so arranged that the outside faces of the north and south tower walls were in a line with the inside faces of the piers of the two arches opening into the nave and choir, the lower voussoirs of which thus supported the whole weight of the cross walls above them. The oblong thus became a square, and by this arrangement it was possible to raise a small stone tower in the centre of the church, while at the same time retaining the two arched openings between the nave and the choir.