Minster Abbey

Details

TR 3064-3164
5/6

MINSTER
BEDLAM COURT LANE (West side)
Minster Abbey

6.2.58

GV
I
Monastic grange, now abbey, C11 and C12, altered c.1413. Rubble, flint and dressed stone details. Plain tiled roof. Originally built around three sides of a courtyard, a chapel on the south side, domestic and office ranges on west and north sides.

Entrance front: the north front of the north wing. C12 in origin. Two storeys on irregular plinth with string course and boxed eaves to hipped roof with stone stack at end left, and brick stacks to left and to right. Left end bay projects, with two tier C15 cinquefoiled window. The left end of the main range was probably rebuilt at the same time, a C15 window interrupting the string course at this point. Two C12 windows on first floor, and one blocked to right. Three C17 segmental headed three light mullioned and transomed wooden casements on first floor, and irregular fenestration on ground floor of C20 trecusped two-light window and C17 segmental headed mullioned and transomed windows. C15 door to centre right, three panelled door in four centred arched doorway, chamfered with moulded surround, with arms of Thomas Hunden in spandrels, Abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, 1405-1420. The door interrupts earlier pilaster strips.

Derelict and partly ruinous C19 extension and wall to left, of flint. Double projecting block with large cart doors to right, with round headed window over, and boarded door and sidelight to left with pointed arched heads. Wall about 8 feet high extending about 20 yards.

Left return: C12 round-arched shafted window in upper wall above C19 extension. Right return; the rear of the late C11 west range, the main feature a central gabled three storey projection. Originally 2 storeyed and battlemented. Seven C20 gabled dormers, and four C15 two tier trecusped and cinquecusped windows.

Rear elevation: to the inner courtyard. Main range with ground floor of greater thickness, defined by string course, the upper course with much finer masonry work. Pilaster strips. Two C12 windows on first floor to left, and one blocked to right. Three two tier cinquefoiled windows with double quatrefoiled mid-panels, all heavily restored, recessed in lower floor. Chamfered doorway and panelled door to left.

West range two storeys with single dormer and central stack. Three C15 windows on first floor separated by small slit windows with blocked C12 light to right, and two C15 windows on ground floor, with round arched doorway with small sidelight, the semi-circular head made from a single block. The fabric shows much alteration. The door and sidelight are set within a small area rebuilt in ashlar. Lower ground floor otherwise shows masonry set herringbone fashion, with levelling courses of flint, also carried across onto the tower to left. Originally west tower of chapel (demolished), only the north wall adjacent with west range remains. Now two storeys, with shafted recess with pierced light on first floor to east, and similar arcading to north west corner. Remains of arcading on eastern ground floor, and sculpture of Christ in Mandorla on west ground floor probably C19 reconstructions. Newel stair in ashlared well in north-west corner.

Interior: refashioned c.1413 by Abbot Hunden. West range may have a parallel rafter or scissor-braced roof, but is obscured by C20 alterations. North range with crown post roof, moulded octagonal posts, those at either end only attached shafts to frame. Smoke blackened. Early C18 dogleg stair with turned balusters. Slype between chapel tower and west wing now small chapel, groin-vaulted of two and half bays.

An abbey for Benedictine Nuns since the 1930s, built on the site of Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, refounded here c.750, destroyed by the Danes 840, transferred to St. Augustine's in 1027, and from then the central Grange of the Abbey's large holdings on Thanet. Already leased into private hands by the Dissolution, it remained a farmhouse until 1937.

Listing NGR: TR3119964363

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

419672

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent, (1983), 395
Archaeological Journal in Archaeological Journal, Vol. 86, ()

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