^ritolojjm djanitaira
TWO KENTISH CAEMELITE HOUSES—
AYLESFORD AND SANDWICH
By S. E. RIGOLD, F.S.A.
THEKE were three Carmelite houses in Kent, out of a total for England
and Wales of forty-one1—Aylesford, Lossenham in Newenden and
Sandwich. The so-called White friars of Canterbury were in fact Austin
friars. Since the mendicant orders held little land and few titles to hand
on to their successors the documentation of individual houses is thin.
But among the later medieval Carmelites there was a lively interest in
the history of their order: a fifteenth-century Prior of Maiden, Richard
Hely, compiled a table of houses in order of traditional foundation,
which is preserved in a notebook of Stowe's,2 while John Bale, another
late, and often unfriendly, witness, had been Prior of Ipswich. We have
largely to rely on such derivative sources for the origin of each
house. In Hely's list Hulne in Northumberland and Aylesford come
first and second and are both ascribed to 1240; they certainly represent
the two detachments of the original plantation of theorder, which did not,
however, arrive until the end of 1241. Others of Hely's dates can be
shown to be a few years out. 'Newenden' is placed third with a date of
1241 and Sandwich sixteenth in 1272. While the precise years must be
treated with reserve, there is no doubt that Lossenham was a very
early settlement, while Sandwich belongs, with the majority of the
houses of the order, to the last third of the thirteenth century. Though
they did not owe them a heavy basic endowment, Carmelite houses
honoured the Founder's family and expected them or their- successors
to continue their alms. In an abbreviated cartulary of Aylesford, also
preserved by Stowe,8 the seventh in succession from the 'first founder'
Richard de Grey is called 'seventh founder', while Hely several times
mentions a 'second founder', which should here mean something quite
1 Knowles and Hadcook, Medieval Religious Houses, 196 ff.
2 B.M., Harl. 539,143.
3 B. M., Stowe 938, 76.
1
1
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
specific—the immediate recipient of the original founder's rights,
whether by inheritance or by other conveyance.
Because they generally occupied town sites that were quickly
converted to other uses, Friary buildings in England (but not in Ireland)
have a low rate of survival. True, a higher proportion of the Carmelites
and Austin friars than of the two more numerous orders
were in the country. On the limited available evidence it appears
legitimate to elucidate the plans of one order of Friars by analogy with
those of other Friars within the same province (perhaps the most obvious
instance is the odd, single-transept church used by all four orders in
Ireland). This is in complete contrast with the universal buildingdiscipline
of the Cistercians. But it is also apparent that there was a
considerable development of the accepted and generalized friary plan
within any province from the thirteenth century onwards and that
communities whose original endowment was very small and who built
from income rather than from capital, lent themselves to new and
economical concepts of conventual building. The narrow steeple
over the 'walking-place' that has come to be regarded as typical of
friaries, both in England and Ireland, was one of these novelties,
originating early in the fourteenth century. The search, then, is not so
much for a distinctively Carmelite plan as for a typical English friary
of a particular period. It is unfortunate that the two plans here discussed
were not recovered under the sort of archaeological conditions
that might establish a firm relative date for all their parts.
Both Aylesford and Sandwich have already been cursorily treated
in Arch. Cant.4 It is unnecessary to repeat all the documentation
collected in V.C.H. Kent, II, 201 and 204, respectively, where it is not
strictly germane to their development and structural history. The
purpose of this article is to remedy the archaeological deficiencies of the
earlier notices and to present all that is firmly known of plans that
have now partly been built over. Lossenham remains unexplored.5
HISTORY
AYLESFORD
The manor was reckoned as one intact knight's fee, held by Richard
de Grey of Codnor (Derbyshire), in 1253-4, i.e. after the friary was well
4 Arch. Cant., lxiii (1950), 60, and xlviii (1936), 225.
B v. Arch. Cant., xiv (1882), 311, for an inventory made at the Dissolution.
The site is near a river, as at Aylesford, but on a slight ridge. The present house,
of the 1660's, remodelled later, stands within a moated site, apparently representing
the capital messuage which was not alienated by the Auohers -when they founded
the friary. The O.S. map marks the site of this to the east of the moat at a spot
where Major J. R. McGrindle, the present owner of the house, assures me that
building-materials are found. Nothing is visible on or above the surface.
2
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
established.6 The small parcel occupied by the friars was not the only
one in the manor granted in frankalmoign to a religious house7 and it
was hardly economically self-supporting. Being quite near the south
coast, it probably sheltered the whole Carmelite party until the group
under de Vesci's patronage moved north to Hulne,8 but de Grey'sgroup
remained technically guests until 1247, when the bishop of
.Rochester, Richard of Wendover, issued a formal faculty for them to
establish a dwelling-place and a chapel and an indulgence to help the
building of the chapel,9 which the same bishop consecrated in 1248.10
The Carmelites had not yet acquired immunity from episcopal jurisdiction.
About the same time the King acknowledged the community
with a pittance.11 These provisions do not imply a full claustral lay-out,
but the chapel was evidently a ground-floor building, suitable for burial.
Richard de Grey then established the Carmelites in London, probably
in 1253,1
2 but the Aylesford community remained and Richard's
grandson, Henry (baron Grey by writ in 1299) seems to have been the
next to show any active interest in it and was buried there in 1308,
after which the house became, in effect, a family chantry with a rather
unusual college to celebrate there.13 His son Richard increased the
tenement in 131814 and his grandson, John (third baron from 1335 to
1392), obtaining a relaxation of dietary discipline for the friars15 and
a relaxation of penance for pilgrims visiting the house.16 This growth
would call for such improvements to the buildings as a proper stone
cloister by the first half of the fourteenth century, and a new church
was envisaged in 1348, when the ground for it was dedicated (by a
Carmelite bishop under exemption from the diocesan).1 7 Work proceeded
very slowly; the quire may not even have been finished when the
third baron was buried in 1392, if it was still described as 'new' when
the fifth baron was buried in 1430,18 but already in 1417 bishop Yonge of
Rochester had consecrated a church that was complete enough to have
c Arch. Cant., xii (1878), 224; cf. Regist. Roffense, 154 (21 Ed. I).
7 The hospital of Strood has woodland and messuages in the parish, besides
the church (Cal. Ch. R., 1226-57, 293; Cal. Pap. Reg., Letters, I, 329; Regist. Roff.,
147-9, 153). The Valor Ecclesiasticus records a rent still due to the Master from
the friars. The friars also had woodland and were able to supply elms to the Bridge
Wardens of Roohester in 1400.
8 W. St. John Hope in Arch. Jour., xlvii (1890), 105; site excavated 1888-9.
0 In the cartulary (note 3), dated Trottisoliffe, 25.1.1246-7.
10 ibid, (note 3).
" Cal. Lib. R., 1245-61, 163.
12 J. R. H. Moorman, Church Life in Eng. in the Thirteenth Cent., 367, pace
V.C.H. London, I, 507.
13 of. Complete Peerage, III, 123 ff.
14 Cal. Pat. R., 1317-21, 142; 3 acres added.
15 Cal. Pap. Reg., Petitions, I, 286.
" Cal. Pap. Reg., Letters, I I I , 573.
17 In cartulary (note 3); the bishop was John Pascal.
18 So the Complete Peerage, but the citation probably refers to 1392.
3
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
included the nave altars.19 There was certainly building in progress in
the 1380's and 90's when Sir Richard atte Lese (whose brass is at
Sheldwich) left a bequest20 (as he also did to Sandwich), when a local
man, Rynger, established a private ohantry2 1 and when arrangements
were made for a new water-supply.22 After the church was finished
attention was turned to modernizing the cloister; here the key document
is a small bequest in 1451,23 but the work was evidently slow
enough still to be calling for money as late as 1513.24 The surviving
outer curia and both gatehouses bear witness to this steady rebuilding
to the end of the fifteenth century and beyond. The seventh and last
baron Grey was buried at Aylesford in 1492.25 Summarizing, the documents
point to a first church in the late 1240's, totally rebuilt between
the 1380's (or possibly earlier) and the 1410's, and a first substantial
set of claustral buildings from the early fourteenth century, which were
being transformed from the mid-fifteenth until the eve of the dissolution.
The tenurial history after the dissolution in 1538 can be followed
elsewhere.26 Suffice it to say that a number of ultimate gothic features
that could just be pre-dissolution,27 would rather seem to belong either
to John Sedley's reconstruction in the 1590's (date-stones of 1590 and
1592 are associated with rather unequal detail), or to some adaptation
soon after the dissolution. The splendid interior refurbishment by Sir
John Banks in the 1670's (see the plan and description made under his
successors by marriage, the Finch earls of Aylesford)28 was lost when
the house was gutted by fire in 1930. There is some photographic record
of the ensuing restoration by the then owner, Copley D. Hewitt,2 9
when many medieval features were revealed, but were generally in
such a state as to necessitate completely new dressings.
In 1949 the Carmelites repurchased the house. Before the community
could occupy it it was repaired and adapted under the direction
of Mr. Hugh Braun, who took the opportunity to do some limited
trenching and gave an account of his findings to the Society of
Antiquaries. A short version of this paper was published in Arch.
Cant., lxiii (1950) with schematic reconstructed plans and elevations.
10 In cartulary (note 3); 'tempore septimi fundatoris'—really the sixth (ob.
1418), unless one year is out.
20 or Leese; Knight of the Shire 1366 ob. 1394 v. Arch. Cant., xviii (1889), 290;
for his will, Cal. Kentish WiUs, 1384-1559 in Prerog.Co. Canterbury.
21 Regist. Rojf., 154-5.
22 Cal. Pat.. R., 1391-6, 371 (1394). The aqueduct led from Burnham.
23 v. Appendix A.
21 ibid.
26 Complete Peerage, VT, 132; for his will, N. H. Nicolas, Testam. Vetusta, 411.
20 e.g. Hasted, also Thorpe, Bib. Top. Brit., vi, pt. 1,1.
27 e.g. most of the doorways in large ragstone ashlar with drafted margins.
28 Thorpe, as note 25; plan follows p. 28.
20 High Sheriff 1929-30, and a Scout dignitary. Photographs of repairs in
Nat. Buildings Records.
4
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
In 1959 a new and un-traditional church was erected, with transepts or
'tribunes' leading saltire-wise from a central sanctuary to subordinate
chapels, the central alt ,i-r being near the site of the quire altar of the
medieval church. The emplacement for this was formed by lowe ing
the site of the eastern arm and east range. This was done mechanically,
but the operation provided a 'free' area-excavation of the greater part
of the church and east-range. Two independent surveys were made,
admittedly not under ideal archaeological conditions, which form the
basis for the plan here presented. The open-air 'nave' to the west of the
new church is now paved and the present information about the
foundations now covered over must suffice for the foreseeable future.
In presenting this account of the remains, together with the foregoing
re-assessment of the documentation, the writer gratefully
acknowledges the help and encouragement of the former Prior, Fr.
Malachy Lynch, of Brother Conlett and others of the convent, and of his
fellow-surveyor Mr. Anthony Gilbert Scott, then living with the community.
SANDWICH
In Hely's table30 the 'first founder' is named as Henry Coufeld
'from Germany' (de Alemania), the second, 'by concession', as Thomas
Balseforde 'earl of Worcester' and the date of foundation 1272. Henry
is otherwise untraceable, but a Coufeld or Coufeud with the low-German
name of Godekyn occurs in London under Edward I3 1 and the possession
of an altar to St. Garion (i.e. St. Gereon of Cologne)32 affirms the German
affinities of the house. There was never a Balsford earl of Worcester,
but the only known Balsford place-name (Balsford Hall in Beoley) is
in fact in Worcestershire, and Hely or his source, had evidently confused
comit(ej with comit(atus). This Thomas Balsford 'from Worcestershire'
is equally untraceable, but it is likely enough that Henry, who
must have held enough land in Sandwich to accommodate the friars,
had for some reason to surrender his holdings and rights to someone
else—a transaction that probably took place not in Sandwich but in
London. The date cannot be far wrong: in 1280 John de Sandwich
(ob. 1282) of the important and genealogically difficult local family,33
was licensed to augment the Carmelites' existing holding of land,34 and
it is clear that he also obtained the founder's privileges. Only thus can
another and obviously garbled late tradition be explained, which
names 'William Lord Clinton' Lord of Folkestone as 'second founder'
30 v.s., note 2.
31 Rotuli Hundredorum, I (1812) 404, 421, 423.
32 Appendix A, sub anno 1602.
33 J. R. Planche, A Corner of Kent, 296 ff.
34 Cal. Pat. R., 1272-81, 404.
5
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
and large benefactor in 20 Ed. I (1291-2).3& No member of the midland
family of Clinton of Maxstoke and Kenilworth (Warwicks) had any
interest in Kent until 1328, when William Clinton, created earl of
Huntingdon, but never 'Lord Clinton',36 married the 'Infanta' Juliana
de Leybourne, ultimate heiress, among much more, of John de Sandwich's
lordship of Folkestone. The reference is obviously either to
Huntingdon, who was a hero and champion to the men of Sandwich as
commander of the Cinque Ports squadron at Sluis, or to his nephew
John Lord Clinton who succeeded to Folkestone in 1354, and the date
perhaps records a donation either by Huntingdon in 20 Ed. Ill, or by
John de Sandwich in 10 Ed. I, or a confusion of both. Yet a third late
source names a Thomas Crawthorne as a principal benefactor in the
time of Edward I;37 he, again is otherwise untraced, but the Crawthornes
were minor local landholders and kinsmen or clients of the Sandwich
family.38 All these documents point to a small foundation in or about
1272, enlarged a few years later by John de Sandwich and his fellows
and a house of some substance by c. 1300, and perhaps again enlarged
in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. Though not rich the
house was not so utterly dependent as Aylesford, and its circumstances
would require a complete claustral lay-out by c. 1300. A private conduit,
a convenience that friars always looked for, was arranged in 1306,39
nearly a century before Aylesford. had one.40 These early buildings
would seem to have lasted substantially for the whole duration of the
friary, but bequests show that slow, and perhaps modest, repairs were
in progress on church in 1474 and 1481, on the cloister in 1523, and again
on the church between 1526 and 1537.4
1 Indeed, the house seems to
have been in a flourishing state and attracting undiminished legacies
in its latest days. I t possessed an image of the Virgin which had earned
a particular indulgence from bishop Brantingham of Exeter as early
as 1370.42 In 1482 a general chapter of the order was held there, with
some subsidy from the corporation.43 The verse epitaphs of the fifteenth
century, recorded by Weaver44 from Bale, suggest that the house
36 W. Boys, Coll. for a History of Sandwich, I, 175; 'from a MS (unspecified)
in my (Boys') possession'.
30 Complete Peerage (under 'Clinton' and 'Huntingdon'); for a traditional
view of him see F. W. Steer, John Philipot's Roll of the Constables of Dover and
Lord Wardens ..., 24.
37 Hasted, ultimately from Bale (?).
88 Planch6, A Comer of Kent, 297 and note.
3i Cal. Pat. R., 1301-7, 440; land with spring at Wodnesborough alienated in
mortmain. For friary conduits in general, see A. R. Martin, Franciscan Architecture
in England (Br. Soc. Franciscan Studies, 18), 39.
40 v.s.,note21.
41 Appendix A, under those years.
42 Exeter Episc. Reg. VII (Brantyngham), I, 223.
43 Sandwich Corp. Records—Year Book, 273 d, cited also by Boys.
44 Ancient Funeral Monuments (1767 ed.), 62.
6
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
was not behind the rest of late medieval Carmelites in a certain urbanity
and humane learning.
After the surrender in 1538 some of the buildings were probably
downed forthwith to provide material for fortification,45 but they were
not totally grubbed up and excavation indicates that the more adaptable
buildings were left standing. In 1540 the notorious and unfortunate
Arden of Faversham acquired the precinct,46 while a certain James Hall
still held 'certain void premises' by lease granted by the Carmelites.47
In 1573 a motion was made to purchase the 'Friars' (Hhe whole precinct
or just the messuage now called Whitefriars House) for the Corporation.
48 The same question of precise identity affects the 'Fryers', listed
among the properties of a certain Mr. Cooke, one of the 'Forreners
dwellinge without us', in the Shipping-cess of 1595. The same document
names 'a garden next the Fryers gate', which would appear to have
been still standing.4 8 The finds suggest that some of the buildings
remained in use until the seventeenth century, but by Boys' time
(1790's)49 the precinct was vacant, as his map, which marks the moats,
shows, though another writer of 1790 records not only foundations then
visible, but 'side-walls of the avenue' from the gate on the Moatsole.50
At some date before 1936 burials had been found in the N.W. of the
precinct.
The whole precinct was parcel of the land of the house called
Whitefriars in 1936, when the then owner, Dr. John Harrisson allowed
the late Mr. W. P. D. Stebbing to uncover the foundations, with the
aid of a fund for the research into the history of Sandwich, administered
by Alderman W. R. Rose. The excavation occupied fifteen weeks from
18th June, 1936. An interim report (but with only the most general
indication of the precise location) promptly appeared in Arch. Cant.,
xlviii (1936), 225, Stebbing being then editor. But nothing more was
done until 1962, when the present owners of Whitefriars, Mr. and Mrs.
H. S. Deighton, sought permission to build four blocks of flats on the
precinct. I t was understood that the first block would, in any case come
clear of any known part of the claustral complex, and that, in the light
of what was thought to be the position of the buildings, all the flats
46 of. Rutton in Arch. Cant., xxiii (1898), 25, but there is no proof that the
Whitefriars provided the material shipped from Sandwich.
4« L. and P., Hen. VIII, xvi, 831(17); cf. also Arch. Cant., xxxiv (1920), 101.
" Cited by Stebbing from Corporation records; cf. also Boys, op. cit., 180.
48 Both copied in ext&nso by Stebbing from Corporation records. For Whitefriars
House cf. Arch. Cant., lix (1946), 115.
4U Boys' map (op. cit., opp. p. 790) marks three plots—the trapezoidal piece
within the S.E. moat or channel, the larger one to the N.E., containing the remains
and extending -well into the present cattle-market, and the strip to the W. between
these and the Rope-walk, as having belonged to the Friars. He also records the
descent of Whitefriars House to his own family.
60 The Kentish Traveller's Companion (3rd. ed.), 289.
7
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
were intended to avoid violating the foundations. In the event, the
fourth block, the only one yet complete, was built first, and foundations
were exposed, thought to be part of some unrecorded subordinate
building, but in fact part of the refectory (compare Fig. 2, below).
I t was now too late to resite the building or lay on an emergency
excavation, but the trenches were observed by Mr. B. Roberts, the
Town Clerk, and Dr. J. S. Ogilvie, to whose help, as well as to Mr.
Deighton, the writer is most indebted in his attempt to reconstruct
and properly base the plan of the friary. The discovery of the survey
notes and some of the small finds among Mr. Stebbing's legacies,
kindly communicated to the writer by his colleague Mr. G. C. Dunning,
led him to re-examine the site and the other small-finds and records to
which Mr. Deighton and Mr. Roberts have kindly granted him free
access. The plan and interpretation which he presents is an attempt at
reconciliation of sometimes inadequate and divergent evidence, and may
be subject to correction if partial re-excavation is ever undertaken.
ESTABLISHMENT AND INTERPRETATION OF PLANS
AYLESFORD
In Arch. Cant., lxii<, Mr. Braun printed a site-plan and more detailed
ones at ground-floor (including the outer curia) and first-floor levels.
The site-plan is adequate for its purpose and does not need repetition in
this volume. But the larger plans are very schematic—all the angles in
the claustral complex are shown as perfect right-angles, and though a
distinction is made between upstanding medieval walls and destroyed
ones, there is no indication of what was established by excavation and
what is conjectural. From a few well-placed cross trenches, Mr. Braun
was able to calculate the general form and size of the latest church, but
he also supplied an unwarranted reconstruction of the east range,
where he admits that he was able to do little.
The stripping of the eastern two-thirds of the church and most of
the east range in 1959 revealed the plan at the level of the lowest
footings (and sometimes a course of two higher) almost in its entirety.
The plan is recorded at this level and allowance must be made for a
slight reduction in thickness at the actual walls. The earlier robbing
and disturbance of floors had evidently penetrated almost to this depth
and little archaeological damage seems to have done, but there was no
opportunity to test the stratigraphic relation of the various modifications
of plan. The author surveyed the exposed area of the church and
parts of the east range. Subsequently Mr. Anthony Gflbert Scott
covered the whole east range and much of the church. These two surveys
in large part overlap and substantially agree. For the western part of
the nave we have still to rely on Mr. Braun's data, where one of his
8
INNER
GATE
OS
D
U
NEW QUIRl
NAVE
mm CLOISTER
GARTH
REFECTORY OVER
Standing mediaeval buildings
Obserivd footings, probably
primary
Observed footings, secondary
SOUTH COURT? and doubtful
— Footings after il Braun
Conjectural
— Approximate position of post
mediaeval buildings
Drains
GUEST
HOUSE ?
Scale of Feet
5 0
Scale of Metres-
AYLESFORD, CARMELITE FRIAAY
J7io.il.
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
trenches lay open for some time and the lines he established are now
marked on the paving. The footings were of flagstone rubble with a
small admixture of flint and no particular distinction between face
and core, nor any easy criteria for dating. But the outline of the earlier
church, on a different axis from its successor, and the accurate plotting
of other deflections provide some indication of development, though
much of the east range remains problematic. The writer then reexamined
the standing buildings, where further repairs have taken
place. The plan presented here (Fig. 1) is a conflation of the two surveys
of the buried foundations (marking only those remains which have been
seen and measured by either witness, or both) tied into a revised plan
of the upstanding medieval claustral buildings, at plinth level, with
later structures marked in outline for reference. This does not extend
to the buildings round the curia, which are all well shown on Mr.
Braun's plan, though a more precise examination of the late monastic
and the, possibly post-dissolution, ultimate gothic elements would be
useful. The remains are recorded, without prejudice as to date, and
with the proviso that some straight joints, etc., may have been missed.
A tentative consideration of the various components follows.
The Early Quire
Two parallel footings, one on the south side of the later quire and
the other through the middle of the 'walking place', but not bonded
to it, must surely be those of the first quire, which would then have had
the likely internal breadth of 24 ft. (7-2 m.) and a probable length of
64 ft. (19 m.), much the same as at Hume,51 close to the probable
dimensions of the Sandwich quire, and apparently the regular size for
the quires of early Carmelite and other lesser friary churches, such as
the Blackfriars of Brecon.52 The larger Franciscan quires approached
100 ft.
The New Quire and Walking-place (Plate I, A)
These were very much as Mr. Braun reconstructed them. The quire
was again probably 24 ft. wide above footing-level and 72 ft. (21 -5 m.)
long, in four bays separated by deep buttresses. It was evidently a
high building, conceived as a structural entity. Any indication whether
or not there was, as at Coventry,^3 a resonance-passage under the stalls
had disappeared^ A number of burials in the presbytery, some in ragstone
cists, including one on the axis, in the place of honour proper to
a founder, were laid bare, just beneath the tracks of the machine;
61 Arch. Jour.,idvii (1890), 105.
82 A. R. Martin, Franciscan Archit. in England, 14, plan opp. 22.
55 Excavated by Mrs. C. Woodfleld; interim reports in Medieval Archosol., v
(1961), 314; vi-vii ('62-3), 317; viii ('64), 245.
' 9
TWO KENTISH CARMELITE HOUSES
these probably include those of the Greys. At least one sacristy or
chantry-chapel had been thrown out between the buttresses on the
south side. The heavy transverse footings of the 'walking-place', on
the axis of the east cloister walk, undoubtedly carried a typical friars'
axial tower and the emplacement for a spiral stair was visible in the
south-west corner. The slight westward buttresses were straightjointed
to the nave footings and there was certainly a break in construction
at this point, whether or not the nave was ever entirely
reconstructed.
The Nave
The walls of this, anyway in its final form, diverged towards the
west. The breadth of 30 ft. (9 m.) given by Mr. Braun was evidently
obtained at that end, where he certainly cross-trenched it.54 The south
wall had the same direction as the early quire, while the north was
apparently more or less on the line of the new. The final span is large,
but manageable, for a single-span roof but originally it would have
had its south wall near to that of the later north cloister walk, and it
seems then to have had a north aisle, much as at Sandwich. A possible
explanation for the divergent walls is that the aisle remained in use
while the south wall was reconstructed with deep buttresses on an
inset line, but parallel with the arcade; the arcade was then demolished
but the old, ill-set-out north wall, where no traces of buttresses have
been found, was retained. The direction of the new quire would thus
have been based on that of the north aisle.
The East Range
This was the essential part of a conventual lay-out and the first
to be built; for a small community, such as the brethren of a hospital,
it was all that was needed, and the complete habitation for the original
settlement of friars would have been found there. It is presumed that
its ground-floor face always ran from the same north-east angle of the
cloister-walk—at least, no other building-line has been found. A fairly
heavy, but interrupted wall, some 20 ft. (6 m.) east and a mutilated
north wall, separated from the old quire by a passage, later blocked,
(but not by a 'court') have been found. This item, taken by itself, is
something as Mr. Braun surmised, but whether he had any evidence
that the south wall originally continued that of the south range is not
explicit; if it did, it was certainly cut back when the earlier, certainly
medieval, river-wall was erected. The undercroft was divided into
three compartments and then re-divided. There was an eastern exten-
64 His trenching is visible in Knowles and St. Joseph, Monastic Sites from the
Air, 255.
10
PLATE I
,,"• : • MN -,
zpmz.
A. Aylesford Friary. Footings of Walking-Place Tower and New Quire,
from west.
Photo by R. W. Wardtfl, Crown Copyright reserved
B. Aylesford Friarj-. South and West Ranges of Cloister, from north-east.
[fact p. 10
PLATE II
v V' :-0*-
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