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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
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The Building ...In 1545 ownership of the former almonry was granted by the king to Sir Philip Hoby, the diplomatist, who had already acquired the greater part of the abbey site. Ballard may have lived at the almonry for a while but at his death in 15 57 his principal residence was at Elmley Lovett (Worcs.) where he had become rector in 1543. An inventory of the former almonry taken shortly after Ballard's death named its rooms in this order: the parlour, the little hall, the chamber over the hall, the upper hall, the inner chamber, the chamber over the parlour, the chapel (a first-floor room), the kitchen, and the buttery. Within a few months of the suppression the monastic buildings were being dismantled and the saleable materials quickly disposed of. The former almonry, however, survived until 1557 as a private house; after Ballard's death sound business reasons may have inclined the Hoby family to allow it to remain. There has been some doubt whether any part of the building known today as the almonry stands on the site of the monastic almonry. The identification does not seem to have been made before the 19th century. In 1794 William Tindal, a local antiquary, saw the present building only as an 'inhabited house' which seemed to him to be 'entirely composed of the abbey remains' and evidently part of'some ancient fabric'. E. J. Rudge, who was the owner's son and an antiquary, called it the 'abbey house' in 1820 and 1835 but identified it with the former almonry since that building had been said in the 1540s to stand, as does the present building, near the abbey gate (the remains of which are preserved in the structure of a large 18th-century house a little distance to the north east). Rudge's identification has been accepted locally but was questioned in 1906 by C. R. (later Sir Charles) Peers. He pointed out that the present building is not, as was the almonry, adjoined by the abbey gate on the north. If however the 'almonry' of the I540s description be understood to have meant the whole premises including garden, yard, and out-buildings, Rudge's identification becomes possible. The medieval parts of the present building, because of their position at the perimeter of the former abbey precinct, were certainly some part of the monastic offices. |
