SITES AND REMAINS OF RELIGOUS HOUSES
ST. JOHN'S ABBEY. (fn. 12)
The buildings of the
abbey were laid out in 1095, and the first of them
were completed in 1115. The cloister and domestic buildings lay north of the church, as a
small hill occupied the land to the south. The
abbey was burnt down in 1133. The church was
rebuilt on a cruciform plan, with a massive
central tower and an elaborate west front flanked
by south-west and north-west towers, possibly
round. Late 12th-century capitals, perhaps from
the internal jambs of a window or from blind
arcading, found near the abbey site, may have
been from its church or chapter house. (fn. 13) Building was still in progress in 1235 when Henry III
gave the abbey 15 oaks; the work may have
included the transepts and chancel of the church,
which appear to have had lancet windows. The
chancel may have been further modified in the
early 14th century, for the presbytery was apparently new when the body of Eudes the sewer
was moved there in 1320. The domestic buildings were later said to have been moved from
the north to the south side of the church in the
rebuilding after 1133, but the cloister and some
buildings, including the chapter house, seem to
have remained on the north, as Eudes's body
allegedly lay undisturbed in the chapter house
from 1120 to 1320. Moreover, a 15th-century
drawing of the church shows on the south side
of the nave a 14th- or 15th-century chapel which
could not have been built had the cloister, which
from the evidence of a surviving fragment appears to have been of the earlier 13th century,
been on that side. (fn. 14) The buildings needed repair
in 1363. In the 14th or 15th century chapels were
built on the south of both nave and chancel and
a lantern and spire were added to the central
tower. St. Mary's altar was recorded in the mid
13th century, and a chantry was founded in St.
Mary's chapel in 1364. The lady chapel, perhaps
the south chancel chapel, where abbots and local
gentry were buried, was recorded again in 1489
and 1521. (fn. 15) The church seems to have stood in
the north-east quarter of the abbey site, east of
the surviving gateway; a number of skeletons
and an east-west wall have been found in that
area. (fn. 16)
In the late 14th century and the early 15th,
perhaps as a result of the revolt of 1381, the
abbey strengthened its defences, repairing the
precinct wall and adding at least two towers on
the north side, facing the town. The surviving
two-storeyed gatehouse was built shortly afterwards. In 1453 the abbey's precinct for purposes
of sanctuary, which included the whole of St.
John's green, outside the precinct wall, also
seems to have been defended, if only by a
palisade. (fn. 17)
The abbey was dissolved in 1538. Its site was
leased to Roger Williams in 1544, and on his
surrender in 1545 to Sir Thomas Darcy. (fn. 18) In
1547 it was granted to John Dudley, earl of
Warwick, later duke of Northumberland, who
sold it to Francis Jobson in 1547. (fn. 19) Jobson sold
St. John's in 1548 to John Lucas, who had
already acquired Sir Thomas Darcy's lease and
with it possession of the site. (fn. 20) Lucas died in
1556 and was succeeded by his son and grandson, both called Thomas Lucas. The younger
Thomas (d. 1625) was succeeded by his son John
(d. 1671), created Baron Lucas of Shenfield in
1645. (fn. 21) The site was confiscated during the Civil
War, and in 1643 was among the lands used to
secure the payment of £5,000 a year from parliament to Robert Devereux, earl of Essex. (fn. 22) In
the 1660s St. John's was said to belong to John
Cockshott, (fn. 23) but he may have been Lord Lucas's
tenant. The site was apparently sold soon after
1671 to John Walkesdon, a Jacobite who fled to
France with James II in 1688. It then passed
through a number of hands until it was bought
in 1720 by Edward Arrowsmith who, by will
proved in 1760, devised it to his daughter Sarah
and her husband Philip Roberts. (fn. 24) Sarah Roberts
held the site in 1783, and probably in 1797. In
1834 it was occupied by Mr. Austen, presumably
the nurseryman Edward Austen. It was bought
by the War Office in 1860 from Thomas and
Frederick Baring. (fn. 25)
St. John's Abbey Gatehouse, 1718
John Dudley owed c. £658 for the lead from
the church and other abbey buildings, which had
presumably been unroofed, in 1552, (fn. 26) but part
of the church seems to have survived in 1621.
On the south the Lucas family converted part of
the abbey, perhaps the abbot's lodging, into their
house. (fn. 27) It was presumably there that John
Lucas (d. 1556) provided for his widow to have
three chambers and the use of various offices, a
mill, and the granary. (fn. 28) In 1640 there were a
great gate and three other gates, presumably in
the precinct wall; one of them may have been
the plain round-headed gateway flanked by
round towers which apparently survived on the
south of the site in 1648. Much of the house was
destroyed in the siege that year, when it was used
as a royalist outpost, and the remaining buildings were damaged by Dutch prisoners housed
there in the 1660s. (fn. 29) All trace of the Lucases'
house seems to have disappeared by 1748; the
mansion house let with the site and some of the
former abbey demesne in 1744 and 1783 was
presumably outside the precinct wall. (fn. 30)
The surviving rectangular gatehouse is on the
north side of the abbey precinct, facing the town,
and was presumably the main entrance to the
abbey. It is built of flint with flushwork decoration, of two storeys with corner turrets. The
main gateway has a four-centred arch with
niches above and on both sides. The upper
storey, including the battlements, the window
tracery and the details of the niche above the
door, was blown up when the gatehouse was
stormed by parliamentary troops in 1648, and
was almost entirely rebuilt, probably in the
1840s. It appears to be a faithful copy of the
15th-century work. To the east of the gatehouse
are the north and east walls of a 15th-century
porter's lodge. (fn. 31)
ST. BOTOLPH'S PRIORY.
The church, a
house of secular canons in the late 11th century,
was refounded c. 1100 as a house of Augustinian
canons. The church was rebuilt in the 12th
century and was dedicated in 1177. (fn. 32) It was both
parochial and conventual throughout the Middle
Ages, the canons presumably occupying the
chancel and transepts, the parishioners the
nave. (fn. 33) St. Thomas's altar was recorded in 1281
and St. Catherine's chapel in the priory church
in 1406. St. Mary's chapel next to the choir,
recorded in 1435, was repaired or remodelled in
1488, and there was a Trinity chapel in 1503. (fn. 34)
In 1512 there was a west porch, perhaps over
the 'pardon door' recorded in 1514. (fn. 35) The dormitory was being rebuilt in 1383. (fn. 36) In 1421 an
indulgence was granted to those who helped
with the repair of the buildings. (fn. 37) There is little
evidence for the plan of the monastery, but part
of the northern range of the cloister has been
excavated on the south side of the nave. (fn. 38) A
courtyard west of the church was entered by a
gateway which survived on St. Botolph's Street
until the siege of 1648. A dovecot was recorded
in 1536, and the great barn, south of the church
and cloister, had been converted into houses by
1542. (fn. 39) Part of the monastic buildings or outbuildings apparently survived in 1621 south-east
of the church; it was probably destroyed in
1648. (fn. 40) Two foundations with adjacent floors,
which may have been from such a south-eastern
building, were excavated in 1987. (fn. 41) Short lengths
of three parallel walls, possibly of outbuildings,
were recorded in the south-west corner of the
site in 1944, and part of the precinct wall
survived in the back walls of houses in St.
Botolph's Street into the 20th century. (fn. 42)
St. Botolph's Priory, 1718
The priory was dissolved in 1536 and granted
to Sir Thomas Audley, (fn. 43) but the nave and aisles
of the church remained in use as a parish church
until they were badly damaged in the siege of
1648. (fn. 44) Audley held the priory site until 1540
when he granted it to John and Anastasia Golder
who sold part, including the great barn. Anastasia granted the remainder of the site to Arthur
Clark in 1548. (fn. 45) Clark died in 1553 and was
succeeded by his son Alban who sold the priory
site in 1589-90 to Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, created earl of Dorset in 1604. (fn. 46) Thomas's
son Richard, earl of Dorset, sold it to Edward
Legg in 1615. (fn. 47) In 1637 Legg sold the site to
William Mott and others, who conveyed it in
1639 to John Brettle and others. The others
released their interest in the site to John Brettle
in 1642; Brettle by will dated 1649 devised it to
his sisters Anne wife of Thomas Penneth, Margaret, and Mary. The sisters conveyed it in 1651
to Jacob, Peter, Elizabeth, Mary, Ann, Judith,
Sarah, and Jane Hendrick, children of the alien
Oliver Hendrick. Hendrick, by will dated 1683,
devised the site to his surviving children Jacob
Hendrick and Elizabeth Burkin. In 1720 Elizabeth Burkin and John Hendrick, presumably
Jacob's son, conveyed their respective moieties
of the estate to Matthew Martin. Martin divided
the estate, conveying the southern half to his
son-in-law John Price in 1733. Price, by will
dated 1743, devised it to his wife for life with
remainder to his son Martin and daughter
Mary. (fn. 48) They seem to have sold it to Elizabeth
Selly, who was occupying the site in 1745. She
devised it to her son-in-law John Halls, owner
of the Greyfriars site. Halls, by will proved in
1795, devised it to his nephew James Halls who
held until 1797 or later. The land immediately
south of the ruined church, a brewery occupied
by Joseph Shepherd from c. 1802, was sold to
St. Botolph's parish for a new church by T.
Mayhew in 1835. (fn. 49)
The northern part of the estate passed, with
Matthew Martin's other Colchester lands, to his
son Thomas who devised it in 1772 to his wife
Dorothy for life with reversion to his nephew
and son-in-law Isaac Martin Rebow, later Isaac
Martin Rebow Martin, husband of his daughter
Mary. In 1786, after Isaac Martin's death without issue, Thomas Martin's widow Dorothy and
her husband John Adams, with Mary's consent,
conveyed the reversion of the estate to Thomas
Martin's other daughter Sarah (d. 1807) and her
husband William Fraser (d. 1813). (fn. 50) In 1813
Fraser's daughter and heir Elizabeth conveyed
the ruins of the priory church to the parish. The
site was placed in the care of the Board of Works
in 1912. (fn. 51)
The surviving ruins of the priory church, of
flint rubble with dressings of Roman brick and
some Barnack and limestone, date mainly from
the early to mid 12th century, and seem to be of
the church consecrated in 1177. They comprise
the remains of seven bays of the aisled nave, and
of the elaborate west front flanked by north-west
and south-west towers. Excavation has revealed
a small north transept, a south transept with a
crypt or undercroft beneath it, and a short,
square-ended, chancel. The crypt extended
under the crossing, and presumably also under
at least part of the chancel. (fn. 52) The nave had a
high triforium above the squat, circular piers of
its arcade. The central west doorway with a
round arch of five orders, four of them with
chevron ornament, survives, as do two side
doorways, probably of four orders, into the
aisles. Above them were two tiers of intersecting
wall arcade, and above that a rose window
flanked by two round-headed windows. Above
them was a string course terminating in two
pinnacles; above that again was another intersecting wall arcade, and above that were three
round-headed windows, and at the apex of the
gable a small round recess. In the 14th century
new windows were inserted into all but the
easternmost bay of the north aisle. (fn. 53) The ruins
were damaged in the earthquake of 1884 and
were extensively repaired in 1887-8; further
work was undertaken by the Board of Works
after 1912. (fn. 54) In 1990 and 1991 the west front was
cleaned and repaired, and in 1992 the position
of the transepts and chancel was marked out on
land recently acquired and landscaped by the
borough. (fn. 55)
GREYFRIARS.
The Friars Minor or Greyfriars had established a house in Colchester by
1237 when Henry III granted them a plot of
land to enlarge their site which lay on the north
side of High Street between the castle and East
gate. (fn. 56) In 1247 he gave them 10 marks from the
forest eyre, perhaps to finance building work,
and in 1269 he gave 7 oaks to build their
church. (fn. 57) The priory buildings were presumably
nearly complete by 1279 when the friars acquired permission to bring water by an
underground conduit across the king's demesne
land and under the town wall to their house,
although Edward I gave 6 oaks, presumably for
further building, in 1306. (fn. 58) The friars received
several further grants of land in the course of the
late 13th century and the 14th, including 4½ a.
north of their site from Edward II, so that by
the Dissolution they owned a block of land
between High Street, the town wall, and the
castle bailey. (fn. 59) The house and gardens were
bounded by a precinct wall on the south and
west and by the town wall on the north and
east. (fn. 60)
The friary was surrendered in 1538, most of
its valuables, including the lead from roofs and
water pipes, being sold, stolen, or pledged before
the king's agent arrived. (fn. 61) The site, with the hall
called the old hall, the infirmary house, the
chambers called Sir Thomas Tyrell's lodging,
the kitchen, bakery, and brewery, two small
gardens and 4 a. of land within the precinct wall,
was leased to Francis Jobson in 1539 and granted
to him in 1544. The king reserved the right to
have buildings taken down and removed, but in
the event 'superfluous' buildings were sold to
Jobson; the lead was melted down for the king's
use. (fn. 62) Jobson conveyed the Greyfriars to William
Watson in 1565. (fn. 63) Watson bequeathed the site
to his nephew Brian Watson, but one third
passed to his son and heir John. (fn. 64) Brian in 1586
and John's heir William Watson in 1596 conveyed their shares to Martin Basil from whom
the site passed to his son and grandson, both
called Martin Basil. The youngest Martin conveyed it in 1636 to Henry Leming and his son
Henry who sold it in 1654 to William Peeke.
Peeke's daughter Mary married Thomas Turgis
who conveyed the site in 1700 to Thomas Carpenter, who settled it, after his and his wife's
death, on his grandson Thomas Bayes. Bayes
sold it in 1740 to Robert Potter (d. 1752). Potter
or his trustees sold it to the Revd. John Halls
(d. 1795), who built a new house on the street
frontage and laid out a garden behind it. Halls
devised Greyfriars to his nephew James Halls,
from whom it passed c. 1814 to Thomas Baskerfield. Baskerfield, by will proved in 1817, left
Greyfriars to his wife Sophia, apparently with
reversion to his executor Horatio Cock and his
heirs. Priory field, behind the house and its
garden, was leased to the trustees of the botanic
gardens from 1824. The whole estate was offered
for sale in three lots in 1847, presumably on
Sophia Baskerfield's death. (fn. 65) Two new streets of
houses were laid out on the site of the botanic
gardens, (fn. 66) but Halls's house and its southern
neighbour, with their gardens, survived in 1990.
The site was entered through a gatehouse in
Friar Street which survived in 1622. The conventual buildings were apparently set back from
the street, the cloister and domestic buildings
being on the north side of the church. In 1620
two parallel ranges of buildings apparently survived, but in 1718 only the walls, one containing
13th-century lancet windows, and the remains
of the cloister walk remained. Fragments of wall
remained in 1748, but were presumably destroyed by John Halls when he laid out his
garden. (fn. 67) No trace of the medieval buildings
remained in 1847, nor had any foundations been
found in the course of digging in the botanic
gardens, but skeletons had been found in the
kitchen garden north-west of the 18th-century
house. In 1794 there were two ponds at the north
end of Priory field, near the town wall, presumably former fishponds; before 1847, probably in
1824 when the field was converted into botanic
gardens, they were made into a single pond. (fn. 68)
The Grey Friars, 1718
CRUTCHED FRIARS.
The house, on the
south side of Crouch Street just west of its
junction with Maldon Road, originated in the
12th century or the early 13th as a hospital and
chapel founded by the lords of Stanway in a
detached part of that parish. It was first recorded
in 1251, and Robert FitzWalter, lord of Lexden
manor, quitclaimed the advowson to Thomas de
Belhus of Stanway in 1285. (fn. 69) In 1383 John
Stansted, a former chaplain, sold the advowson
to two Colchester men who in turn conveyed it
in 1392 to three leading burgesses. They conveyed it the same year to the bailiffs and
commonalty for the repair of the town walls, (fn. 70)
but the Crown presented in 1395, and in 1400
granted the advowson, which was said to have
been forfeited to the king, to John Doreward,
lord of Stanway manor. Nevertheless, in 1403
eight burgesses of Colchester were patrons. (fn. 71)
The hospital was endowed by an early master
with at least 6 a. in the suburbs of Colchester,
recovered by another master in 1285, but by
1401 it had fallen on hard times and the chapel,
which then comprised nave, chancel, and belltower, and other buildings were in great need of
repair. In 1403 the bishop of London, at the
request of the patrons, and with the consent of
John Doreward as patron of Stanway church,
gave the master or warden of the hospital permission to conduct services for the inhabitants
of the detached portion of Stanway parish in
Crouch Street and Maldon Lane, and granted
the chapel baptismal and burial rights. He endowed it with the great and small tithes and
offerings of its area of the parish, but burdened
the warden with an annual pension of 13s. 4d.
to the rector of Stanway. The warden was
responsible for the maintenance of the chapel
and was to look after its goods, notably the relic
of the holy cross. (fn. 72) In 1407 the guild of St.
Helen, earlier associated with St. Helen's chapel,
whose members included the leading burgesses
and many of the neighbouring landowners, was
refounded in St. Cross chapel, and undertook to
support 5 chantry priests and 13 poor people in
the hospital. (fn. 73) Nevertheless the old foundation
survived; masters or wardens of St. Cross hospital being appointed in 1468 and 1485. (fn. 74) In the
early 15th century Thomas Godstone, one of the
patrons, built a chapel of St. Mary adjoining St.
Cross chapel, and founded a chantry there. (fn. 75)
Thus by the later 15th century there were two
chapels and at least one hospital on the site.
About 1496 the Crutched friars successfully
claimed St. Cross chapel and hospital, which
with their endowments were quitclaimed to
them by the wardens of St. Helen's guild and
Edward Knevett lord of the manor of Stanway. (fn. 76)
The friars presumably enlarged the buildings,
taking Godstone's chapel into their church as a
lady chapel; by 1510 when the endowments of
Godstone's chantry were granted to them the
lands were said to be for the lady altar in the
conventual church. (fn. 77) Another altar, of special
indulgence, was recorded in 1516. (fn. 78) Burials discovered in the 19th century in the garden of no.
38 Crouch Street presumably mark the site of
the friars' graveyard. (fn. 79) Foundations were found
under a house and garden in the same area in
the 1930s, with further skeletons between them
and the road, and the foundations of a stone
building with a slate roof, possibly St. Cross
chapel, were excavated near the street frontage
in 1989. (fn. 80)
In 1538 the prior and community granted the
church, churchyard, and priory buildings including stables, barns, and dovecotes, with all
their land in Colchester and its liberty and in
Stanway and West Bergholt, to Thomas Audley,
later Lord Audley. (fn. 81) Audley acquired a grant of
the premises from the Crown in 1541, although
John Barnaby, who had married Catherine
widow of Edward Knevett of Stanway, appears
to have made an unsuccessful claim to it. (fn. 82) The
site passed from Lord Audley to his brother
Thomas Audley of Berechurch and to Thomas's
son Thomas who sold it in 1563 to William
Watson (d. 1571). Watson devised the Crutched
Friars to his sister Elizabeth Walleys for life with
succesive reversions to his nephew William Watson and to William's two sisters, both called
Joan, but one third of the estate passed to his
son and heir John Watson. (fn. 83) In 1573 Elizabeth
Walleys quitclaimed her life interest to John
Watson, reserving to herself and her husband a
house and garden at the west end of the precinct
wall, against the Spital house, presumably in the
north-west corner of the site. (fn. 84) Joan wife of
Arthur Hall, presumably niece of the elder
William Watson, conveyed her interest in the
estate to John Watson in 1580, and in 1583 John
granted the Crutched Friars to William and
Robert Woodward, who sold it the following
year to Edward Barker. Barker's son James held
it in 1613 but later sold it to John Stephens (d.
1620) from whom it passed to his son John (d.
1625) and presumably to the younger John's
eldest son James. (fn. 85) Part of the friary buildings,
a north and a south range joined by a wall, may
have survived during the Stephens' tenure of the
site, but they were probably demolished when Sir
Harbottle Grimston Bt. (d. 1648), who bought the
Crutched Friars in 1637, built a house on the site
for his son Sir Harbottle, M.P. and recorder of the
town. The house was fired by the retreating
royalists during the seige of Colchester in 1648,
and was not occupied by the Grimstons thereafter. (fn. 86)
About 1700 the surviving building was converted into a town workhouse; it appeared then
to be a recent building, apart from some windows in its east wall. (fn. 87) That workhouse had
apparently closed by 1711, and the Crutched
Friars, owned in 1748 by Jeremiah Daniell, was
used for pauper housing. Daniell by will proved
1766 bequeathed it, then occupied as two dwellings, to his daughter Sarah Daniell. Sarah
devised it to her brother Peter whose estates
were sold on his bankruptcy in 1784. The
Crutched Friars, otherwise called the Priory or the
Old Workhouse, then comprised a tenement and
10 a. of land and garden ground. (fn. 88) It was acquired
by James Blatch, who by will proved 1812 devised
it to his wife Elizabeth for life with reversion to
his son James. James was succeeded in 1837 by
John Blatch, who owned the site in 1846. (fn. 89) In
1865 James Blatch Philip Hoblyn sold the land
for development, laying out Blatch, later Wellesley, Street between Crouch Street and
Maldon Road. (fn. 90)
The house on the north side of Crouch Street
called Crouched Friars in 1989 derives from a
copyhold of Lexden manor, called the Holy
Cross by 1694, which had probably been held
by the Crutched friars in the early 16th century. (fn. 91) There is no evidence that it formed part
of the site of their house.
HOSPITALS.
St. Mary Magdalen's hospital,
founded by Eudes the sewer in the early 12th
century, was apparently still functioning in 1557
when the master, Thomas Gale, made one of its
brothers his executor and residuary legatee. (fn. 92) In
1565, however, the hospital's lands were sold, to
pass within a few months to alderman Benjamin
Clere whose son Benjamin was master from 1562
to c. 1580. The hospital had presumably ceased
to house its five poor or infirm people by 1565,
and by 1580 its buildings were falling down. (fn. 93)
The lands were restored in 1582, but later
16th-century masters appear to have used their
office mainly as a source of income. The hospital
was refounded in 1610. (fn. 94)
St. Catherine's hospital, on the north side of
Crouch Street, had been founded by 1352 for a
master and infirm brethren, presumably by the
lords of Lexden manor, to whom the site belonged. (fn. 95) In 1378 the proctor or master was
accused of assaulting three inmates, two men
and a woman. The hospital was recorded again
in 1382, 1406, and 1510; part of it had become
a house and garden by 1545, but in 1583 that
was converted into a barn because it was so
close to the hospital that no one could live in
it. (fn. 96) The hospital survived as almshouses in
1622 and 1671. In 1748 the six brick houses,
of two rooms each one upstairs and one downstairs, were used as the St. Mary's parish
workhouse. (fn. 97) St. Anne's chapel and hospital is
treated elsewhere. (fn. 98)
John Savey, by will proved 1451, bequeathed
7 houses under St. John's abbey wall to house
13 poor people who were to pray for him and
his benefactors; there seems to have been no
endowment, and the almshouses were not certainly recorded again although there was an
almshouse in the same area in 1589 and 1627. (fn. 99)
Other almshouses, presumably also unendowed,
were recorded in Magdalen Street in 1458 and
1559. (fn. 1) An almshouse in St. Martin's parish,
recorded in 1607, was disused by 1748 although
its site was still called Hospital yard. (fn. 2)