A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Alexander, 1222-26, built the great solar at the 

 door of the abbot's chamber, with a cellar beneath it. 



Richard of London, 1274-95, built the granary 

 of the convent. 



William of Woodford, 1295-99, renewed the 

 abbot's chapel. 



Godfrey of Crowland, 1 299-1 32 1, built in 1299 a 

 garderobe fortem ct pulckcn'mam between the great 

 church and the abbot's chapel, with very beautiful 

 cupboards at the end of the chapel. 



Gunton ' tells us that Robert Kirton, 1496-1528, 

 made a bow window in his great hall overlooking the 

 cloister, and a chamber in his dwelling house, calling 

 it Heaven's Gate Chamber. 



The abbot's hall was therefore over the western 

 range of claustral buildings, and its dimensions are 

 given in 1539 as 32 yds. by 12 yds., the great 

 chamber adjoining being 33 yds. by 10 yds. 



In the survey of the site made in 1 541 on the 

 establishment of the bishopric, the range of buildings 

 abutting on the cloister on the west is said to be 

 180 ft. long. This dimension is about the actual 

 distance between the south wall of the church and 



Heaven's Gats Chamber, the Palace, Peterborough 



that of the frater, and clearly includes the building at 

 the west end of the latter. The length of the great 

 chamber makes it clear that it did not stand in the 

 same line as the hall, but e.ist and west, and if its 

 width be added to the length of the hall, the com- 

 bined measurement reaches from the church to the 

 north wall of the frater. The great chamber there- 

 fore ran westwards from this point over the site now 

 occupied by the modem chapel of the bishop's palace, 

 and the vaulted building now forming the entrance 

 hall of the palace abutted on its south side. This 

 seems to be the great solar at the door of the abbot's 

 chamber, with a cellar beneath it, built between 

 1222 and 1226 by Abbot Alexander. That all these 

 buildings were fine of their kind is witnessed by 

 Gunton.' 'A building very large and stately,' he 

 says, ' as this present age can testify ; all the rooms of 

 common habitation being built above stairs, and un- 



derneath were very fair vaults and goodly cellars for 

 several uses. The great hall, a m.ignificent room, 

 held at the upper end in the wall, very high above the 

 ground, three stately thrones, wherein were placed 

 sitting the three royal founders, carved curiously of 

 wood, painted and gilt, which in the year 1644 were 

 pulled down and broken in pieces.' In the west wall 

 of the cloister, beside the three early doorways already 

 mentioned, are three others ; one of the 14th cen- 

 tury with pierced tracery above its he.id, in the fourth 

 b.iy from the north ; a second, with a round arch and 

 moulded capitals, c. 1200,' in the eighth and ninth 

 bays; and a third, of the 1 6th century, with a 

 straight-sided four centred head, in the tenth b.iy. 



The abbot's chapel projected westward from the 

 hall, and was renewed between 1295 and 1299 by 

 William of Woodford, while his successor, Godfrey of 

 Crowland, built in 1 299 a garderobe between it and 

 the great church as noted above. The cupboards 

 mentioned were probably in the garderobe, in a wall 

 abutting against the west part of the chapel. 



The chapel, the position of which is suggested on 

 the coloured plan, is probably that referred to in 

 1539 as the Abbot's G.allery Chapel, as 

 being close to the great west front or 

 Galilee of the church. It seems to have 

 been dedicated in honour of St. Mary 

 Magdalen, as the route of the procession 

 on the vigils of principal feasts suggests. 

 This, after leaving the frater, passed by 

 the sub-cellarer's door, evidently near the 

 south end of the west wall of the cloister, 

 and entered the door of the abbot's 

 chamber, a little further north. It then 

 went to the chapel of St. Mary Magda- 

 len, and returning from it entered the 

 chamber, and went straight to a second 

 chapel. The way must therefore have 

 been to turn to the right at the head of 

 the stairs leading up from the cloister to 

 the first floor, where the hall and cham- 

 ber were, and to go through the hall 

 to the chapel. Returning then through 

 the hall, the procession went westward 

 through the great chamber to the second 

 chapel, called the small or private chapel. 

 This is evidently that referred to in I 539 

 as the ' other chapel ' in the abbot's house, but 

 nothing more is known of it. It may have been 

 over the north end of the solar. 



Of all these, the principal buildings of the abbot's 

 house, nothing remains but the solar. Its upper story 

 (the solar itself) is cut up into rooms, and no original 

 features are to be seen,* but the ground stage, which 

 as already said serves as the entrance hall to the present 

 bishop's palace, is vaulted in two spans with five bays 

 of ribbed vaulting, springing from circular pillars and 

 corbels in the walls. The three middle bays are much 

 in their original condition, but the southern bay is 

 entirely modern, as far as regards the vaulting. The 

 northern bay is wider than the rest, its east half being 

 cut off by solid walls and used as a cellar, while the 

 west half forms the vestibule to the modern chapel. 

 The cellar is lighted by a single narrow lancet on the 

 east, and on its north and west sides are parts of an 



' Op. cit. p. 56. 



» Ibid. p. 4. 



" The date points to its having been in- 



serted as the entrance to the vaulted 

 space below the great chamber, or to stairs 

 to the chamber itself. 



454 



^ Some 13th-century windows were 

 lately found in its west wall, but have 

 been again covered up. 



