The Remains
of Coggeshall Abbey (4)
By G F
Beaumont, F.S.A.
An extract from Transactions ‘n.s.’ Volume 15 part
1. This volume is available exclusively
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St Nicholas Chapel
This
building is first referred to in the will of John Newman,[1]
who was chaplain of
the chapel of Pattiswick.
The will is dated the
26th September, 1464,
and by it the testator gave
to abbot William his new missal, according to the Sarum use, to remain forever
in the chapel of St. Nicholas or the monastery for the secular
chaplains for their use
at Mass;
and we have another pre-surrender
reference to the chapel in the will of Stephen Queram,[2]
of Little Coggeshall, dated the 22nd July, 1508, who thereby gave a cow, (which in pre-reformation days was a very common bequest) to the church of St. Nicholas.
This
chapel is not referred to in the surrender of the abbey, nor in the grant to Seymour, not in the exchange with the king; but there are two barns mentioned in
the Minister's Accounts of 33 Henry VIII.,
one as the barn called the "Tithe Barn," and
the other as the "Barn Stane," situate near the highway from Coggeshall to Kelvedon, both of them being let to Leonard Smith by deed dated 28th March, 29 Henry VIII., from Michaelmas then last past,
for 80 years, at a rent of 10l.
per annum. These two
barns
and the tithes of Great and Little Coggeshall were granted by Queen Elizabeth on
the 4th November, in the 33rd year of her reign, to John Welles and Hercules Wytham;
and they appear again in the conveyance from Welles and Wytham to Richard Benyan on
8th January, 34 Elizabeth. Richard Benyan died 17th November, 7 James I., leaving Richard his
son and heir aged 4 years and 6 months. The
son, by his will dated 13th May, 1659, gave to Henry, his eldest son, the barn and
ground in the
abbey lane, and his tithes of
land in Little Coggeshall, and the tithes of the lands which belonged to the abbey
lying in Great Coggeshall.
Strutt (A.D. 1775) has a
sketch and some account of
this chapel in his Manners and Customs of
the People of England.[3] He says it "has
the pointed arch, and was,
in its first state, far from
being an inelegant building,
though very plain and void of ornament which
was afterwards crowded
in such superfluous excesses in the
building of Gothic structures. The wall is composed
of unhewn flints, pieces of brick and tilesheards over
which the cement was neatly plaistered, both withinside and withoutside, and seems in all respects to
have answered the purpose
of a stone f acing.
The four
corners (on the outside of the building)
were ornamented with bricks, many of which are evidently Roman.[4] All the arches of the windows and the two supports down the middle of the large window are composed of
bricks having the ornament necessary for the purpose handsomely
cut out[5] upon them. This ruin is full as perfect as the drawing, but
it is much to be feared that it will not long remain
so, for, being now
turned into a barn, it
will most likely soon be demolished."
The
sketch
shows the
building without any roof,
and the view is, apparently, of the
north
side as no doorway or barn entry is shown. It is
not a very accurate drawing. Good illustrations of this interesting building, as adapted for farm purposes,
will be found in Excursions in Essex (A.D. 1818), vol. i., p. 42, and in Wright's History of Essex, vol i., p. 367, the latter
being dated 1833. The annexed
illustration shews the state of
the building in 1889.
The
Rev. D. T. Powell, who visited Coggeshall in the early part of the nineteenth century, left, among
his collections,[6] an account of
his visit to the abbey, and
with regard to this chapel he says: "From hence [i.e., from the Abbey f arm] I came to a small original chapel of St. Nicholas, as it
would seem.
It is still called a
chapel, says the quaker [the farm being then let to a member of the Society of Friends], now turned into a barn, which is very
perfect, and of which I took a view:
within the splays and muntings of
the great window is painted, on the stucco, red arabesque flowers in a free, masterly
manner. The east and west ends of this building have three long narrow lancet windows within
a pointed arch;
they are, however,
filled
up: the two sides
have some
small lancet windows
in them: the one side has
been partly
broken away to make a large barn
door."
This little building is, according to that eminent authority Sir W. St. John
Hope,[7]
like that of Kirkstead in Lincolnshire, one of the very
few surviving examples
of the chapel outside
the gates, which was a feature of
every Cistercian abbey, where
women and other persons who were not allowed within the gates could hear mass, etc. There are ruins of other examples, viz.: at Fountains, Rievaulx, Tintern and Furness; and the chapel
at Tilty in this county is still standing and
is used for service.
The
plan of the building is extremely simple, being quadrilateral
in shape, and having no aisles,
transept or tower, though
it may be it once had a turret. It corresponds in size with the chapel at Kirkstead, both being 43 feet long by 20 feet wide.
The
building continued to be used as a barn until 1860, when, with the proceeds of the sale of
a portion of the glebe land for the purpose
of a school, it was, with an acre of land surrounding it, purchased by the vicar of
Coggeshall, and the property now forms part
of the possessions of the vicarage.
It is due to the late Rev. W. J. Dampier, the then vicar of Coggeshall, to mention that it was through his instrumentality that
the building was rescued from agricultural uses, and the reader is
referred to a paper by him, which was printed in the Transactions of the Society,[8]
for a record
of the then existing state of
the building and of the discoveries which
were made during the partial restoration which took place about
that time.
It was Mr. Dampier's intention to restore the building for service for
the parishioners of Little Coggeshall, but money did not flow in as freely
as it was hoped, with the result that little more was effected
than the re-building of the wall which had been broken down for
the barn entry, the insertion of the new stone doorway, the
making good of the windows with bricks moulded for the
purpose, and
the repairing of
the walls and the thatching of the roof. The building was never so
far restored as to be fit for divine service.
It again
fell into decay, and, in 1889,
an appeal was issued for funds for its preservation,
which resulted in a sum being raised sufficient
to do all that was then necessary to preserve it as a ruin.
In
1896 the Rev. C. C. M ills, the then vicar, determined to restore the building for
divine service. With a contribution of
550l. from the English Abbey Restoration Trust, and by the liberal gifts of himself, his
personal friends and others, he raised 1,100l., which was expended
under the direction of Messrs.
Bodley & Garner,
in the complete
restoration of the chapel,
and it was re-dedicated by the Bishop of the Diocese
on the 6th December, 1897.
The
chapel was without any independent endowment until 1910, when Mr. Charles Booton, who was connected
with Coggeshall, died, having by his will left the reversion
of his residuary estate, amounting to nearly 20,000l. after various
life interests, for the maintenance of a priest
for the chapel of St. Nicholas. One third
of the fund, which was divided
into twelve shares, has since fallen into possession.
[1] Proved at Lambeth, 28th
October 1464: 6, Godyn
[2] Colchester
Archdeaconry: 142, Clarke
[3] Vol I, p.103, plate
xxvi
[4] They are, in fact,
medieval; they measure 12 inches by 6 inches, and 1½ to 2 inches in thickness.
[5] They were, in fact,
moulded.
[6] Add. MSS., 17.460,
folio 67. He was born 1771 and buried 1841. Trans. E.A.S., vol. xiv., p.279.
[7] In a letter to the
Times, 20th December 1904.
[8] Vol. iii. (o.s.), p.49
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