Three great Benedictine Houses in Kent: Their Buildings and Topography
THREE GREAT BENEDICTINE HOUSES IN KENT:
THEIR BUILDINGS AND TOPOGRAPHY
TIM TATTON-BROWN
INTRODUCTION
The three largest and richest monastic houses in Kent were the three
great houses for Benedictine monks at Canterbury (Christ Church
Priory and St. Augustine's Abbey) and Rochester (St. Andrew's
Priory). The buildings and topography of two of these houses are well
recorded in early volumes of Archaeologia Cantiana, notably Volume
vii (1868), pp. 1-206 on Christ Church Priory by Professor Robert
Willis, Volume xxiv (1900), pp. 1-85 on St. Andrew's Priory by Sir
William St. John Hope, as well as Volume lxvi (1934), pp. 179-94, a
summary and plan of St. Augustine's Abbey, by Canon R.U. Potts
and Professor A. Hamilton Thompson. However, more than fifty
years have passed since these volumes were published and it is
perhaps time for a re-assessment of the overall topography of these
great building complexes in the light of more recent excavations and
survey work, particularly at Canterbury.
This present essay will start with Christ Church, Canterbury, where
the writer1 has been carrying out a detailed study of the buildings for
the last seven or so years. It will then look at St. Augustine's Abbey,
where very recent excavations, surveys and documentary research
have revealed a great deal about the outer courts of the abbey, and
finally at Rochester Priory where recent excavation and survey work
and some comparative work with Canterbury suggests possible new
interpretations of the topography of the priory. Both at Christ
1 He has been greatly assisted in this work by Mrs. Margaret Sparks (on the
documentary side) and by John Bowen (whose excellent surveys and drawings
illustrate this essay). Other members of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, notably
Paul Bennett, have also helped in this work as well as in the work at St. Augustine's
Abbey.
171
T. TATTON-BROWN
Fig. 1. Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, c. 1090 - a Reconstruction by John Bowen.
Church and St. Andrew's Priories, one is of course starting with the
brilliant and very full studies of Willis and Hope, already mentioned,
and it is only at St. Augustine's that there is sadly no full study,
despite the many years of excavation by Hope, Peers, Potts, Saunders,
etc.2 Apart from the large phased plan first published in 1934 in
the end pocket of Archaeologia Cantiana xlvi, one only has a series of
interim or shorter reports on aspects of the abbey buildings and
topography. Even Sir Alfred Clapham's official 'Blue Guide' of 19553
is only a very brief summary of the monastic buildings and was clearly
intended as an interim statement. One day one hopes that the
Ancient Monuments Inspectorate (many of whose inspectors have
worked at St. Augustine's) will publish a full report of all the
excavations and finds. In the meantime one can only use the many
small interim notes that have been published, quite a few of them in
A rchaeologia Cantiana.
2 See article by Margaret Sparks, below pp. 325-44.
3 A. Clapham, St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Kent (H.M.S.O., 1955).
172
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
CHRIST CHURCH PRIORY, CANTERBURY
This great Benedictine house was one of the largest and bestdocumented
houses in Britain, though before the Norman conquest
virtually nothing is known about its buildings except, that is, the
cathedral.4 With the advent of Lanfranc as William the Conqueror's
first archbishop in 1070 the ruinous Anglo-Saxon monastery was
pulled down and replaced by a large new Norman complex of
buildings, which formed the core of all later work (Fig. 1). By c. 1090,
a new cathedral had been built (1070-77) as well as all the principal
buildings around the great cloister (Chapter House, Dormitory,
Refectory and Cellarium). Building work did not then stop, however,
and with the coming of St. Anselm as archbishop and Ernulf as prior
(later to be Bishop of Rochester), an enormous expansion eastwards
of both the cathedral and of the priory buildings took place, and it
was only in the middle of the twelfth century that the main Romanesque
buildings were complete and that Prior Wibert (1151-67) in
Becket's lifetime could put in the monastic water supply and complete
the building of a series of tall towers (including the central tower
or 'Angel steeple') on the cathedral (Fig. 2). By happy coincidence, it
is exactly at this time that the unique 'waterworks plan' (in reality a
detailed pictorial map) was made, and by good fortune it has survived
to become the only Romanesque monastic plan, apart from the St.
Gall plan, to exist in the whole of Europe.5
With the turmoil that followed the murder of Becket in 1170, and
with the large-scale rebuilding of the Choir that followed the great
fire of 1174, very little else was done in the priory between about 1170
and the translation and dedication of Becket's shrine in 1220. In the
Archbishop's Palace, however, a very large new hall was constructed
(c. 1200-20) by Archbishops Hubert Walter and Stephen Langton
once the dispute with the monks over the colleges at Hackington and
Lambeth had been settled. This new hall, which replaced Lanfranc's
original hall just north-west of the Cathedral, was on a truly
monumental scale. The building extended right across the Palace
precinct from the priory boundary to Palace (earlier St. Alphege's)
Street and was fractionally short of 200 ft. long externally by 68 ft.
wide. It was aisled and the main hall was eight bays long (internal
dimensions 165 ft. by 61 ft.). Beyond the dais end of the hall on the
4 See H.M. Taylor 'The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury', Arch. Journ., cxxvi
(1969) 101-29 and N.P. Brooks, The early History of the Church of Canterbury (1984)
37-59.
5 The 'Waterworks plan' was first fully studied by Professor Willis in Arch. Cant., vii
(1868), 174-81, and 196-9,
173
EcNDUfr HOUSE
Fig. 2. Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, c. 1160 - a Reconstruction by John Bowen.
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
Fig.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
2. (Key)
Nave
Choir
Trinity Chapel
Great Cloister
Cellarer's Range
Guest Hall
Refectory
Kitchen
Locutory
Great Dormitory
Night Passage
Necessarium
Herb Garden
Vestry/Treasury
Infirmary Hall
Infirmary Kitchen
Infirmary Necessarium
Infirmary Chapel
Prior's Old Camera
Prior's New Camera
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
WT
G
east, and part of the same structure with it, was a very long solar
block on a vaulted undercroft. This hall, whose full dimensions have
only recently been realized, is therefore the second largest great hall
in Britain after Westminster Hall.6
During the thirteenth century much new work was put in hand
from the complete rebuilding of the Frater range (following on from
the completion of the neighbouring archbishop's Great Hall), to the
construction of a new Prior's Chapel (over an undercroft) in the
Infirmary cloister and the building of a new misericord (or 'Table
Hall', as it was called here) on the north side of the Infirmary, where
certain monks could eat meat.
With the advent of Henry of Eastry for his very long reign as prior
(1285-1331), we also have the first of a series of very detailed lists of
works undertaken in the priory,7 but from this time onwards much of
the work is refurbishing or rebuilding (though often complete
rebuilding like in the Chapter House or Almonry) rather than putting
up brand-new buildings. The exception however, is in the prior's own
house, where Eastry was probably the first prior to construct a large,
separate and very comfortable lodging for himself and his successors.
6 For a provisional study of this building, see T. Tatton-Brown, "The Great Hall of
the Archbishop's Palace' in (Eds.) N. Coldstream and P. Draper, Medieval Art and
Architecture at Canterbury before 1220 (1982), 112-9.
7 Henry of Eastry's list of works (as well as Thomas Chillenden's) were published by
Willis in Arch. Cant., vii (1868), 185-90.
Outer (Green) Court
Bath-house and Camera
Barn
Granary
Bakehouse
Brewhouse
North (New) Hall
Court Gate
Almonry
Fish Pond
Monks' Cemetery
Lay Cemetery
Bell Tower
Cemetery Gate
Archbishop's Outer Court
Archbishop's Great Hall
Archbishop's Kitchen
Water Tower
Gate
175
T. TATTON-BROWN
Henry of Eastry is also famous for all his work of putting in order the
priory finances, as well as for all his rebuilding work.8
After Eastry's death in 1331 a much leaner period follows in the
middle of which was the Black Death. A new start was, however,
made in 1379 on the complete rebuilding of the nave of the cathedral.
This was originally on the initiative of Archbishop Simon of Sudbury
(murdered in the Peasants' Revolt in 1381) but from 1390-1414 under
Prior Thomas Chillenden, it was carried on and expanded to include
the rebuilding of the great cloister, chapter house and many other
buildings including many monastic guesthouses, like 'Meister Omers'
and Chillenden's Chambers (to the north of the Great Kitchen),
which still survive to this day.9 Chillenden is described by Leland as
'the greatest Builder of a Prior that ever was in Christes Churche.'
The troubled years of the fifteenth century following this saw,
however, a decline in building work, but despite this many very fine
rebuilding campaigns were undertaken and completed, particularly in
the cathedral (south-west and north-west transepts, south-west tower,
etc.,) but also in the priory. Perhaps the most important building
in the latter was the construction in 1444 of a magnificent new library
over the Prior's Chapel.10 Sadly, this was destroyed without trace in
the seventeenth century. At the very end of the fifteenth century, one
other great rebuilding was completed, though not without change of
plan, and that was of the great central tower ('Bell Harry' Tower).
This huge two-stage tower was paid for by Archbishop John Morton
(whose acquisition of a cardinal's cap from the Borgia Pope in 1493 it
perhaps celebrates) and built by Priors Selling and Goldstone II. Just
after 1500, it was completed by its great architect, John Wastell, with
a superb fan-vault."
The final phase of rebuilding, also under Prior Goldstone II
(1495-1517) was the rebuilding of the Cemetery ('Christ Church')
Gate. This very late Gothic and Renaissance structure, which like the
upper stage of 'Bell Harry', is also largely made of brick and may
have been a memorial to Prince Arthur, Henry VIII's elder brother.12
In 1535, Christ Church Priory had a gross income of nearly £3,000
and was the third richest ecclesiastical house in Britain after Wests
D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England I (1948), 49-54.
" For Chillenden's list of works, see note 7 above.
111 See M.R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (1903) for a
discussion of the books and catalogues in this library.
" See C. Hewett and T. Tatton-Brown 'New structural Evidence regarding Bell
Harry Tower . . .' Arch. Cant., xcii (1976), 132-4.
12 P.H. Blake, Christ Church Gate, Canterbury Cathedral (1965).
176
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
Northgate
Yard
% ,Tt]e'Green Court ^
»7 *
Archbitr
Palao
j"nis<*
Cathedral "5S3
5ite ol F«lr
til 1314
/Oaktfyt
°"*.7^^ dm WM
131133
f??a
M
E53
linn
IIIIIIH
Willi
5853
M
ESS3
B
F=3
^
D«an
S t i l l 1
11
111
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
• IX
X
X I
• XII
i;s'i
\-:-y?.\
m lr.:'::;:l
aa
Minor Canons
Six Preachers
Lay Clerks
Porters
Archbishop
•5"
Fig. 3. Canterbury Cathedral Precincts, as adapted after 1541 for the Dean and
Chapter.
177
T. TATTON-BROWN
minster and Glastonbury Abbeys.13 Only a few years later, however,
it was dissolved like all the other religious foundations and was
replaced in 1541 by a 'New Foundation' for a dean, twelve canons,
minor canons, six preachers, lay clerks, porters, masters and pupils of
the school, etc., (Fig. 3). As a result of this, however, many of its
non-communal buildings were re-used straight away, and quite a few
of these have survived unscathed to the present day despite some
later destruction work particularly in the seventeenth and nineteenth
centuries."
The new surveys carried out by the Canterbury Archaeological
Trust (Figs. 3 and 4) have now tried to plot and reconstruct the
positions of all known buildings of the medieval priory.15 To do this, a
detailed examination has been made of all the buildings in the
Cathedral Precincts (many of which contain hidden medieval features,
particularly roofs) as well as a detailed study of all surviving
medieval documentation16 - all of this carrying on the work of
Professor Willis. On top of this, a careful examination has been made
of all known early maps, plans, engravings, drawings and photographs
(though this cannot pretend to be exhaustive) while in the last
seven years quite a number of rescue excavations in the Precincts
have been undertaken which have thrown a great deal of extra light
on the now-demolished buildings like the Archbishop's Great Hall,
Almonry Chapel, Aula Nova and the north range of 'Meister
Omers'." The sites of some buildings like the Sacrist's House (south
of the lay cemetery), prior's great barn and the fishpond (piscina) can
only be approximately located, but these unlocated buildings are very
few, and this new plan of Christ Church Priory must be one of the
most complete plans of a great medieval monastic house to exist
anywhere. It has also helped (by comparing topographical arrangements)
to reconstruct some aspects of the plans of other great
Benedictine priories, notably Rochester (see below).
" D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England III (1959), 473. St. Augustine's was
the fourteenth richest house with a gross income of over £1,700.
14 Some of the nineteenth-century destructions, of the Sub-Prior's Chamber and
Necessarium for example, were recorded by Willis.
15 To be fully published in The Archaeology of Canterbury, iii and iv (forthcoming).
"' Carried out by Mrs. Margaret Sparks; a new history of Canterbury Cathedral is
also in preparation.
17 All these excavations will be fully published in The Archaeology of Canterbury, iii
and iv (forthcoming).
178
22
Northgate
HOUSE FORTH (Roman)
PRIESTS OF THE
BLACK PRINCE'S
CHANTRYfsiLsoO
ALMONRY
YARD
MintVfcrd
OUTER COURT 22
tof Palace)
Sfe*
^
& % & .
*£
<^
&&
THE GREEN COURT
ARCHBISHOPS
PALACE
I LARDER
l THE'HOMORS
, LIBRARY rrrm
^ J » CEMETERY \ over Priors Chapel
^^(CHRISTCHURCH)
S P \ GATE
CHANTRY
LESSER SACRISTS CHAMBER
m i " over Treasury
Linsore Gaidsn
1979-80
~ '-•DR>^
5L Gabriels Chapel
7GATE LAY CEMETERY
CEEEARER5
GARJEN
later
MONKS CEMETERY
GATE
unU11448-9
ARUNDELS CHANTRY (Roman)
THEWHITEIBULL SACRISTY
Prior Goldstone 1
(1449-68)
siteof
GREAT STONE HOU
CAMPANILE
site of
? C12th PISCINA /
site of
SACRISTS HOUSE
of
CONVENT GARDEN QueningatK;
91070-1096
91096-1135
91135-1167
91167-1200
91200-1285
91285-1331
91331-1377
91377-1449
91449-1540
!«eU£ft-**
lr
0,'Q
WT Water-tower
H Hall
K Kitchen
S Services
B BuLLery
P PanLry Me# 91540-1650
Archbishop's Palaceonty
5p^2^
• ^ 2 #
Uncertain
Metres 0 ID
BHHSH
FeeL 0 100
HZBTHZHrH Burgate;
Walls known
Walls known-deLail uncertain
Walls demolished inlaLer phase
ApproxirnaLe locaLion
Site of excavation
j ExLant roof
Fig. 4. Phased Plan of Christ Church Priory, Canterbury.
Walls known
Walls known-detail uncertain
Walls demolished in later phase
Approximate location
Site of excavation
Extant roof
Pre-conquest churches
£1070-1091
91091-1124
91124-1163
91163-1220
91220-1283
£1283-1309
£1309-1375
91375-1457
91457-1539
NORTH HOLMES)
-Queningate ALMONRY
COURT
VINEYARD
ST. AUGUSTINE S
ABBEY
ABBOTS
KITCHEN
?SttiI0f
INNER
'GREAT
COURT
c PETER OF DENES
LODGINGS
ABBOTS
LODGING
M«ER/Co
CELLARERS
GARDEN
Ji-Ji ^
Xfx'/t&cM% &
$®®m
CAMPANILE.
?sftcof
MONKS' CEMETERY
LAY CEMETERY
Feet 0 50 100 SACRISTS HOUSE
? s i te of
Metres 0 10
on St. Martin's Hill 9Port
Fig. 5. Phased Plan of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury.
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
ST. AUGUSTINE'S ABBEY, CANTERBURY
This second large Canterbury Benedictine house18 was situated
outside the city walls to the east, and although now very ruinous,
much is known about the buildings from the long-drawn-out series of
excavations that has been continuing for well over a century but have,
as stated above, not been fully published. The most famous, and best
discussed, buildings are the churches of a pre-Norman conquest date,
and it is not proposed to discuss these further here.19 This discussion
will try to look at the huge new monastery of the post-Conquest
period and, in particular, the topography of its conventual buildings
which has been little discussed.20
Soon after the arrival of Lanfranc as archbishop in 1070, a monk
from Mont St. Michel called Scotland was appointed Abbot of St.
Augustine's. This 'dominant ram of his flock' (as a contemporary
chronicler calls him) almost immediately demolished the seventhcentury
church of St. Mary and Wulfric's unfinished octagon to the
west of it and in the years 1073-87 built the crypt, presbytery,
transepts and two bays of the nave of a great new church. His
successor as Abbot Wido or Guido (1087-99) demolished the original
church of Saints Peter and Paul after having translated the bodies of
all the early archbishops and kings to the various new shrines his
predecessor had created for them in the new church.21 The translation
ceremony was actually carried out by Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester,
in 1091, and once this was done, work continued on the new nave
which was probably completed early in the twelfth century under
Abbot Hugh I (Fleury, 1099-1124). This abbot also probably completed
the western towers of the church,22 and both he and his
predecessor must have been responsible for the building of the
18 There was also a much smaller house for Benedictine nuns at Canterbury, St.
Sepulchre's Priory; for a summary history of all these houses, see VCH (Kent), ii,
(1926), 113-44.
19 See H.M. and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture (1965) 134-43, and A.D.
Saunders, 'Excavations in the Church of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury -
1955-58', Med. Arch., xxii (1978), 25-63.
20 Though see R.J.E. Boggis, A History of St. Augustine's Monastery, Canterbury
(1901) 159-85 for an early discussion of the buildings.
21 This was recorded in great detail at the time by a monk called Goscelin, see
Historia Translations S. Augustini Episcopi (Ed. J.P. Migne), Patrologia latina, civ,
13-46.
22 Much of the north-west tower survived till 1822, and there are several good
drawings of it.
179
T. TATTON-BROWN
principal monastic buildings (cloister, slype,23 chapter house, dormitory,
frater and cellarer's range24). Other buildings must also have
been built at this time including the reredorter, the original abbot's
chamber, the principal gates and probably the Brewhouse, Bakehouse,
etc. It is also at this time that the lay cemetery to the south of
the church was expanded southwards into Longport. Hugh of
Fleury's successor was another Hugh (of Trottescliffe), who was a
monk from Rochester. During his reign as abbot (1126-51), he
almost certainly either built or completed various other main buildings
of the convent of which only the Infirmary (Hall and Chapel)
have been excavated. Other buildings including the Almonry and
Sacristy as well as the abbot's mill in Canterbury are first mentioned
at this time.25
Again, as at Christ Church, the later years of the twelfth century
are very difficult ones for the monastery, particularly under the
notorious Abbot Clarembald (1163-76), and it is during this time that
a large fire is recorded in the main church, in 1168. Clarembald's
long-reigning successor Roger I (1176-1212) almost certainly rebuilt
the choir, presumably trying to build, on a smaller scale, something
as 'modern' as the great choir at Christ Church that was also being
built at this time.26
The middle and later years of the thirteenth century, under Abbots
Roger II (1253-73), Nicholas Thorne (resigned 1283) and Thomas
Fyndon (1283-1309) are a very great period of rebuilding and
expansion in the abbey. In the 1260s the Refectory is being completely
rebuilt and we hear of work in the Dormitory, on a new bath-house
and on a new chapel over the gate.27 This gate may well be the
original main gate, which was probably 100 ft. or so to the south of
the later Fyndon Gate (built c. 1300-09), and on the north side of this
gate was built (probably at this time, though it is not documented) the
new first-floor guest hall. This building, which still survives with its
23 Probably the library and vestiarium, see M.R. James (note 10 above), where a
late-fifteenth-century catalogue suggests circa one thousand nine hundred books in the
library. 'The library' (i.e. a collection of books) is first mentioned in c. 1307, when it
was annually taken into the Chapter House for checking.
24 (Ed.) A.H. Davis, William Thome's Chronicle of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury
(1934), 63, says that Abbot Hugh I 'built the chapter house and the dormitory
from the foundations.' He also built the pulpitum in the church.
25 Thorne, 68-9.
26 For the few vestiges of this choir that have been discovered, see C. Miscampbell,
'A twelfth-century Rebuilding at St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury', in (Ed.) A.
Detsicas, Collectanea Historica: Essays in Memory of Stuart Rigold (1981), 63-5.
27 Thorne, 249-50. There was also a shaving-house next to the bath-house from c.
1264.
180
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
original late thirteenth-century roof,28 was probably a guest hall (like
the Aula Nova at Christ Church) and may have replaced the original
Norman Almonry. In the 1270s and 80s, the great cloister was rebuilt
(including the lavatorium in the north-west corner), and a little later
work started on completely rebuilding the west range of the cloister
as a very grand new house for the abbot.29 At the south end was a
large new first-floor chapel,30 while at the north end a very big new
first-floor hall was built, of which only the south end of the undercroft
has been excavated.31 This range must originally have extended much
further to the north (the hall was at least six and may have been eight
bays long), and a mid-seventeenth-century engraving of the abbey
ruins32 shows a large porch with a large chamber over it on the west
side at the north end. It is also significant that in 1283, the abbot was
allowed 'to enclose the lane between the door of the court of the
Abbey and his land at Nordholm'.33 This must indicate the first stage
of an expansion to the north, as a further licence was granted in 1300
to enclose 150 by 80 ft. of land 'in the suburb of Canterbury adjoining
their court for the enlargement thereof'.34 Recent excavations by the
Canterbury Archaeological Trust35 have found part of a very large
east-west range to the north of the present 'Great Court', and it
seems very likely that this was a new late thirteenth-century cellarer's
range built on the north side of an enlarged inner court to replace the
west range of the cloister taken over for the abbot's house. North of
this again are the ruins of a west wall and gable of what must be the
brewhouse and bakehouse range, also built at about this time
presumably to replace the Norman buildings.36 We also know that in
1287-91 the new hexagonal kitchen was erected. The culmination of
all this work came in 1308 when Abbot Fyndon was licensed to
crenellate the Great Gate of the abbey, and this splendid gate, of
course, still survives. Fyndon died in 1309 after being abbot for
28 See J. Munby, M. Sparks and T. Tatton-Brown, 'Crown-post and King-strut
Roofs in south-east England,' Med. Arch., xxvii (1983), 123-5.
29 In 1276, 'an inner chamber was added for the Lord Abbot next to the kitchen,'
Thorne, 262.
30 The tracery for the east window of this survived till the eighteenth century, see
Buck's engraving of 1735 or Stukeley's drawing of 1722.
31 Now covered by William Butterfield's library for St. Augustine's College.
32 Drawn by T. Johnson and engraved by D. King for Dugdale's, Monasticon
Anglicanum (1655).
33 Cal. Pat. Rolls., Ed. I (1281-91), 51.
34 Cal. Pat. Rolls., Ed. I (1292-1301), 527.
35 See Paul Bennett in 'Interim Report on Work in 1983 by the Canterbury
Archaeological Trust,' Arch. Cant., xcix (1983), 247-51.
36 Thorne, 249, says £30 was given in 1267 by brother Adam for 'changing over the
Bakehouse and the Brewery'. The granary was presumably also in this area.
181
T. TATTON-BROWN
twenty-seven years and he can be compared in some ways with his
great contemporary (and even longer-reigning), Prior Henry of
Eastry. Like Eastry, Thomas of Fyndon is also recorded as a great
builder, and we are told that he built the kitchen from its foundations,
entirely renewed the dormitory roof, constructed a stone
'torale', and built the Abbot's Chapel with a new hall and the great
gate as well as renewing 'the stalls in the choir and a window at the
other end'.37 Other things were also built in his time including the
Charnel Chapel in the cemetery in 1287.38 This chapel is probably the
chapel on the south side of the nave of the church which has only
recently been re-excavated.39 It is incorrectly plotted on the 1934
plan. The Sacrist's House was also probably to the south of the
church (as at Christ Church), and it may well have been in the
south-west corner of the lay cemetery near the Cemetery Gate. The
southern boundary wall of the abbey near here (on the Longport
frontage) is certainly medieval and traces of buttresses of its south
side can just be made out. These and the great width of the wall
suggest a building to the north.40
With the arrival of the next abbot, Ralph of Bourne (1309-34), we
see more work taking place on major buildings like the Chapter
House, and also the tidying-up and walling on all sides of a large area
to the north of the monastery for vineyards. Thorne41 tells us that in
1320 a licence was obtained to close a road in this area, and that the
shady holes and valleys were levelled, the thorns and brambles were
rooted out, the bushes were cut down, and a choice vineyard was
planted. The surviving wall along the south side of the present North
Holmes Road was presumably one of those erected at this time. To
the south-east of this was another large walled garden area (where
the Sessions House and Prison were built in 1808), which is clearly
shown on the c. 1640 map of Canterbury and on several eighteenthcentury
plans.42 This was certainly the cellarer's garden area, and
Thorne confirms this when telling the extraordinary story of the
escape of Peter of Dene from the monastery in 1330.43 Peter had a
large house on the north-east side of the Infirmary Chapel and after
37 Thorne, 394.
38 Thorne, 291 - 'chapel in the cemetery called Charner was finished' in 1287, but not
dedicated till 1299.
39 Note in Med. Arch., xxi (1977), 225-6 and fig. 75.
40 Workmen at the Abbey tell me that a tile-on-edge hearth was found here when a
machine-cut trench was made behind (i.e. north of) the wall in 1972.
41 Thorne, 435.
42 Map 123 in Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library. See also Doidge's map of
1752, and the map in W. Gostling, A Walk in and about the City of Canterbury, (1777).
43 Thorne, 465.
182
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
going 'through his own cellar to a door which leads into the cellarer's
garden, the lock of which he had previously broken,' he 'got across to
the wall opposite the church of St. Martin' and then with outside help
and ladders climbed out.
The great complex of buildings around the Norman Infirmary Hall
and Chapel were dug out by workmen under the supervision of Sir
William St. John Hope, and after his death Professor A. Hamilton
Thompson wrote notes on these buildings in 1922 based on Hope's
plans and notes. These were published in Archaeologia Cantiana in
1934,44 and one can here perhaps put forward a few alternative
interpretations of these buildings, which are suggested by our study
of the similar complex of buildings north and east of the Christ
Church Infirmary (called the Homors). Hamilton Thompson suggests
that the misericord (first built for meat-eating in the late thirteenth
century) was in the south end of the range to the west of the Infirmary
Hall. This is too small an area, and it is much more likely that the
misericord was the building on the north-east side of the Infirmary
Hall. This building has almost identical dimensions to the Table Hall
at Christ Church and also has connecting rooms in the earlier
Infirmary Hall aisle in a very similar way to the Table Hall. On the
north-west side of the Infirmary Hall is a complex of buildings
thought by Hamilton Thompson to be a kitchen and bath-house. I
would suggest it was only a large Infirmary Kitchen with associated
service buildings. North and south of the Infirmary Chapel were
excavated the remains of various thirteenth- to fifteenth-century
buildings. Those north of the chapel, as Hamilton Thompson suggests,
may have originated as Peter of Dene's suite of buildings, but it
is very likely that this complex of buildings was much larger than
Hamilton Thompson thought, and extended as a long range much
further to the east (into the area now wrongly called the Cellarer's
Garden), as well as much further south. Traces of two fourteenthcentury
ranges were found north of the chancel and west porch of St.
Pancras' Church and these clearly extended north to abut the eastern
part of the Infirmary Chapel. This complex of buildings in and around
the Infirmary can be paralleled at many other places like Peterborough
and Ely45 as well as at Christ Church, and was probably used for
the chambers of senior monks in the later fourteenth to mid-sixteenth
centuries.46
"Arch. Cant., xlvi (1934), 183-91.
45 T.D. Atkinson, An architectural History of the Benedictine Monastery of St.
Etheldreda at Ely (1933).
46 Peter of Dene's range of houses (for himself, his large retinue and his treasure)
was first built in 1312; Thorne, 399.
183
T. TATTON-BROWN
Outside Fyndon's Great Gate on the north side of what was later
called Lady Wootton's Green, was the monastic Almonry. Though
badly bombed in the last war,47 a few large stone walls survive which
have for the first time been plotted on our plan.48 Somner, writing in
the early seventeenth century, records that he saw the remains of the
Almonry Chapel here 'rotting in its own ruins',49 though it is not now
possible to locate this building.
The very late fourteenth and early fifteenth century at St. Augustine's,
as at Christ Church, was another period of rebuilding,
particularly after the earthquake of 1382 when Thorne50 records that
the east window of the Chapter House was broken (presumably an
early fourteenth-century window in the twelfth-century walls), as well
as the west window of the church and several other buildings. A few
years later (c. 1390) the sacrist, Thomas of Ickham, made many great
benefactions to the abbey,51 including several bells (both for the
detached campanile and for the western tower), and paying for a new
roof on the north side of the church. He also gave money in 1387 to
rebuild St. Pancras (the new chancel?) and to build a new Chapter
House as well as for rebuilding the cemetery gate. This latter still
exists though very heavily restored.
The only other known new building of the latest period is the new
Lady Chapel, built onto the east end of the church in the fifteenth
century. In the early sixteenth century, it was made smaller with the
removal of two side aisles52 by Abbot John Dygon (1497-1510), and it
was probably a highly decorated (with fan or even pendant-vaults,
etc.) building similar to many other chapels of this time, the most
magnificent of which was the Henry VII Chantry Chapel at Westminster
Abbey. Sadly, it probably only survived for less than fifty
years.
Our new survey (Fig. 5) has tried, for the first time to plot out all
known buildings of St. Augustine's Abbey53 and uses as its base the
47 See note by Dr. W. Urry, who mentioned seeing a two-light fifteenth-century
window there in D. Sherlock, 'The Account of George Nycholl for St. Augustine's,
1552-1553' in Arch. Cant., xcix (1983), 44, note 49.
48 Professor Frere also excavated a few fragments of medieval walls in this area (also
plotted on the plan) see The Archaeology of Canterbury, viii (forthcoming).
49 W. Somner, The Antiquities of Canterbury (2nd ed. 1703), 31.
50 Thorne, 616.
51 Thorne, 673.
52 Canon R.U. Potts in his 'The Plan of St. Austin's Abbey, Canterbury', Arch.
Cant., xlvi (1934), 182, thought the building was of one period 'with flying buttresses.'
This cannot be correct.
55 There is one late-medieval document, inserted on a blank page in an early
fourteenth-century manuscript, which gives the dimensions (usually internal dimensions)
of certain buildings at the abbey. These can be summarised as:
184
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
1874 1:500 Ordnance Survey maps. This was supplemented by the
coloured (phased) plan published in Archaeologia Cantiana in 193454
as well as by our study of the surviving ruins, some of which are not
correctly planned on the 1934 plan (particularly along the south side
of the nave of the church which was only fully explored in the 1970s).
Many of the phasings shown on the 1934 plan are also wrong, for
example the Chapter House and 'Slype' (in reality perhaps the
Library)55 are shown as fourteenth-century even though the clasping
plaster buttresses shown on the plan are clearly twelfth-century in
date. We have also studied all known earlier prints and drawings of
the abbey ruins and have used these to roughly plot out buildings
which have now vanished, for example the late-medieval building
running north from the dormitory, shown on a print of 1787 by S.
Hooper. The survey is not yet complete, but we hope this interim
plan (Fig. 5) shows most of the buildings that can be plotted out to
date. Only further excavation and re-excavation can reveal more.56
ST. ANDREW'S PRIORY, ROCHESTER
In two successive volumes of Archaeologia Cantiana published in
1898 and 1900,57 Sir William St. John Hope wrote a very full study of
the architectural history of the cathedral as well as of the monastic
buildings at St. Andrew's Priory. In these studies, he also produced
detailed phased plans of the surviving ruins of the priory (Hope also
'dug out' some areas in 1881-85, and planned various walls that are
now no longer visible), as well as doing a very full study of all known
documentary evidence. I propose, therefore, in this essay to look
only at some of the wider issues of the topography of the monastery.
Length of the church 333 ft. Width 72 ft.
Width of the nave of the church without exedrae (31&) 34 ft.
Length of the chapter house 87 ft. Width 33 ft.
Length of the dormitory 204 ft. Width 44 ft.
Length of the reredorter 192 ft. Width 24 ft.
Length of the studies (south aisle of cloister?) 104 ft. Width 11 ft.
Length of the refectory (1004). 103 ft. Width 41J ft.
See (Ed.) E.M. Thompson, Customary of St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury (Henry
Bradshaw Society, 1902), 32.
54 Arch. Cant., xlvi (1934), in the end pocket.
55 See above, note 23.
56 Though it is a tragedy that no excavation took place in the outer court/vineyard
area before Christ Church College was built in 1962.
57 Arch. Cant., xxiii (1898), 194-328, and xxiv (1900), 1-85.
185
T. TATTON-BROWN
Rochester Priory was a much smaller monastery58 than Christ
Church though its history after the Norman conquest is very similar,
and we know that it was Gundulf, the first Norman bishop (1077-
1108) who completely rebuilt the cathedral and 'also constructed all
the necessary offices for monks as far as the capacity of the site
allowed'.59 The problem at Rochester is, of course, that the south side
of the Roman walled area where the cathedral was situated is very
small and from the early Norman period onwards, the area of the
priory was rapidly expanded on the south. It could not go north
because of the High Street, and the area to the west had been
acquired by William the Conqueror for his new castle. The first
extensions on the south are made in the later eleventh century and
include an area for the 'monks to make there their garden beside the
wall outside the gate towards the south part of the City outwards,
which they have now enclosed with a wall on every side'. This must
include the area surrounded by the later medieval (fourteenthcentury)
priory wall as well as the area to the south known now as
'The Vines' and from a very early date, the Priory Vineyard.
Gundulf's initial group of priory buildings, as well as his own aula,
were all, as Hope has suggested, probably built on the south side of
the cathedral nave, but early in the twelfth century a decision was
clearly taken to move the cloister eastwards, and to have the south
range (i.e. the refectory) beyond the Roman city wall. Bishop Ernulf
(1114-24), who as Prior of Christ Church had earlier helped expand
that priory eastwards, now set about erecting a new Dorter, Chapter
House and Frater, and the ruins of these fine buildings, of course, still
exist. He and his successors must also have erected a new Infirmary
to the east60 as well as a Reredorter at the south end of the Dorter.61
The real problem, however, is working out the new arrangements for
the outer court and the position of the principal gate to the priory on
the south.
Hope suggested that the Great Gate and Almonry were at the west
end of the cathedral on the south side, but this cannot be correct both
because this gate originally only led into the lay cemetery and
because the Almonry was almost certainly just to the north-west of
the Prior's Gate. It is much more likely that the Great Gate was
58 There were twenty-two monks when Gundulf started the priory in 1083 and more
than sixty in c. 1107.
59 Textus Roffensis, f.172 quoted in Hope, Arch. Cant., (1900), 3. All other later
references given here are taken from this article by Hope unless specified.
60 Hugh of Trottescliffe, a monk who became Abbot of St. Augustine's in 1124 (see
above) is said to have built the Infirmary Chapel.
61 Prior Sylvester c. 1177 is recorded as having removed the privy that formerly
adjoined the Dorter.
186
ROYAL
CASTLE
*2?
^&
OUTER
BAILEY
CEMETERY
TOWER
ClaLer Campanile)
MONKS
OUTER
COURT
? KS-V
PALACE
CLOISTER
SOUTH
CELLARERS
COURT
KITCHEN
site of
PRIOR'S /
GARDEN
INFIRMARY
OUTER ?siLeof
GATE
?site of
GRANGE YARD
(OUTER COURT)
ST. ANDREWS PRIORY
GARDEN
VINEYARD
Metres 0 10
Fig. 6. St. Andrew's Priory, Rochester.
THREE BENEDICTINE HOUSES
either the 'Prior's Gate' or more likely still a gate facing west and to
the south of the Prior's Gate, which would have given direct access
from St. Margaret's Street into the 'Grange yard' (now the area
behind Minor Canon Row and occupied by the 1842 King's School
buildings and the nineteenth-century houses for the canons of the
second, fifth and sixth prebendal stalls). This yard, as its name
implies, contained the granary and was presumably also an outer
court containing the Brewhouse, Bakehouse, stable, etc. Bishop
Ernulf is also recorded as having built a new bakehouse 'near the
southgate and beside the vineyard,' which fits this very well. Another
early twelfth-century document records that the gatehouse was the
work of Luke the cellarer.
Minor Canon Row (built 1721-23) sits on the site of a 'long gallery
called Cannon Place', as it is called in 1588, and I would suggest that
this was originally the cellarer's range with the great kitchen on its
north side at the west end. Another document refers to the cellarer's
court apud le Ameribenche, and this court was perhaps just inside the
Prior's Gate, the latter being the principal gate from the Outer Court
to the inner part of the priory, i.e. the equivalent of the 'pentise' or
'larder' gate at Christ Church.
The boundary between the priory and the bishop's palace was just
behind (i.e. west of) the Almonry (later the original King's School62
and demolished in 1840) and, by the early sixteenth century, the
whole of the area south of the nave of the cathedral was probably
taken up with the Bishop's Palace, making Hope's 'Great Gate and
Almonry' (demolished in 1744) one of the gates into the Bishop's
Palace. There was presumably also a main gate straight into King's
Head Lane. Although most of the Bishop's Palace was destroyed in
the mid-seventeenth century, a survey of 1534, mentions a very large
number of rooms and galleries, and on an analogy with the
Archbishop's Palace in Canterbury, one can suggest that the principal
buildings were at the south end of the Precinct with the Great Hall on
the north side and dividing them from the outer court further to the
north. On the west (i.e. street) side of this outer court was a range of
more menial buildings (kitchen, wash-house, prison, etc.,) while on
the east may have been the site of the late-eleventh and twelfthcentury
Bishop's Great Hall. As at Canterbury, a new great hall was
built c. 1200 by Bishop de Glanville and this is presumably the
surviving large east-west range, though visible features in it are of a
later medieval date.
The area on the north side of the cathedral is much easier to
understand with the lay cemetery (or Green Church Haw) to the
62 Compare Canterbury where the King's School was in the Almonry Chapel.
187
T. TATTON-BROWN
north of the nave, and the fifteenth-century Cemetery Gate connecting
this area with the heart of the city.63 The eastern side of the lay
cemetery was marked by a passage-way (from St. William's Gate to
the north transept) and beyond this a wall in which still survives the
Sextry (Sacristy) Gate. To the south of this fifteenth-century gate is
the unique early Norman 'Gundulf's' tower which later became a
campanile, (called • 'Three Bell Steeple') and around which were
added various chambers for the sacrist. Over and running north from
the Sextry Gate was originally another range of buildings, and this
may well have been the Sacrist's House. To the east of this is the
Monk's Garden and cemetery and this was later bounded on the
north-east by a wall (rediscovered in 1887 and probably originally
built in 1345). Further east again and north of the Chapter House was
the Old Deanery, and this was almost certainly the late medieval
Prior's House. The last Prior of Rochester, Walter Phillips, alias
Boxley, became the first dean, and the Distribution document of
1541-42 tells us that his house had 'two parlours, a kitchen, four
chambers, a gallery and a study over the gate with all other housings'.
The 'gate' was presumably another gate running from the monks'1
cemetery area into a court behind the Prior's House. Running east
from the Old Deanery was another range which was almost certainly
the prior's 'New Lodging'. This again is directly paralleled by the
Christ Church Priory New Lodging. East of this was probably the
prior's garden and the boundary of this garden on the north and east
was presumably another wall which may well have followed the
zig-zag line of the later parish/precinct boundary.
The eastern part of the Priory Precinct was certainly occupied by
the Infirmary buildings, and presumably by several ranges of latemedieval
chambers as at Christ Church and St. Augustine's, and the
surviving length of Roman city wall east of the Dorter may well have
been re-used as a principal wall for one of these buildings. South of
this and in the extreme south-eastern area of the Precinct (and
surrounded by the fourteenth-century crenellated wall with a round
corner tower) was the area later called the King's Orchard and later
still part of the huge Deanery Garden. This must originally have been
the Cellarer's Garden (and ? orchard).
This brief study of St. Andrew's Priory, Rochester, is only a
provisional re-assessment, and it is hoped that a much fuller study
will follow,64 after a more thorough examination of the still existing
buildings.
63 The nave of the Cathedral housed the parish altar of St. Nicholas until a new
parish church was built, c. 1418-23, in the middle of the lay cemetery.
641 am very grateful to Mr. Arthur Harrison for helping me with aspects of this
study.
188