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Summary

St Edmund's Chapel was founded in 1204 on permission of Abbot Helias. It was built on land near to the present Greyfriars Church.

Monument Type(s):

• CHAPEL (Demolished, Medieval to Post Medieval - 1204 AD to 1642 AD?)

Description

St Edmund's Chapel was founded in 1204 on permission of Abbot Helias. It was built on land near to the present Greyfriars Church. An early? 15th century reference implies it had burial rights. By 1479 it seems to have fallen into disuse, and was being used as barn. At the time of the Civil War a fort was built on site, "the Invincible fort" called "Harrison's Barn", which cut off the approach from Caversham. After its disuse the fort was pulled down and built up again some half-mile further out on part of Bettel estate farm. Excavations index states that a wall of an old barn at Bettel farm was blown over c1900. This disclosed many worked stones which had apparently belonged to an ecclesiastical building. This stonework was examined by Keyser, and then stored at the Abbey Gateway. In 1906 the chapel-barn-fort-barn was situated off the Oxford Road, at the bottom of Beresford Road <1>.

<1> Berkshire Archaeological Society, 1906, Berkshire Archaeological Journal, Pages 28-29 (Journal). SRD9930.

<2> RCHM(E) EXCAVATIONS INDEX NMR NO OS/SU77SW43 180A (Bibliographic reference). SRD9931.

Sources

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Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.