If you have any queries regarding this record please contact us at HERecord@Worcestershire.gov.uk for County records (WSM) and archaeology@worcester.gov.uk for City records (WCM)

Monument Types

• CEMETERY CHAPEL (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
• CHARNEL HOUSE (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
• CRYPT (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
• PRIESTS HOUSE (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))

Associated Events

• College Yard (charnel chapel) (Ref: WCM100293)
• College Yard (charnel chapel) (Ref: WCM100294)

Full description

Medieval charnel chapel, priests' house and crypt, dedicated to the Virgin and St Thomas.

It was endowed with four chaplains by Bishop Cantilupe, in 1224, one of them the master. They were to live communally and the hospitium or dwelling mentioned in the charter can be identified with the house and priests' chamber at the west end of the chapel, mentioned in 1578. Willis noted that the buildings constituted a collegiate establishment in their own right {1}.

It was reconstituted in 1265, and subsequently endowed with six chaplains. In the reign of Richard II the chapel was said to be ruinous and was put under the care of the sacrist. A new foundation was established in 36 Henry VI (c.1458) with property donated to the office of sacrist to maintain a chaplain in the charnel house. Bishop Carpenter is said to have set up a library in the charnel house in 1464 {2}.

In 1578 the lease of the chapel with the house or priests' chambers at its west end was granted by the dean & chapter to the bishop. In 1626 it was in use by the bishop as a hay barn. In 1635 the dean received orders from Archbishop Laud that bones disinterred from the cemetery should be gathered up and kept together and that the charnel chapel, currently 'profaned and made a haybarn', should be restored and returned to its original use {3}.

According to Habingdon, in 1636 the sole monument in the chapel, a tomb chest and effigy of an unmarried noblewoman, in the 'lower north side of the chapel of the charnel house' was moved into the lady chapel of the cathedral. The chapel was, from 1636, temporarily used to accommodate the grammar school, until in 1641, owing to the effects of the damp and the 'noisome smells' of the charnel-house on the scholars, the school moved back into the former refectory (WCM 96377). The charnel chapel lease then went to the chapter clerk, the dean and chapter planning to salvage the lead from the roof for the use of the grammar school. This was finally done in 1649. In 1650 the Parliamentary Survey recorded the building unroofed, and beneath it 'a vault, the length and breadth of the room over it, being almost full of dead men's bones and skulls'. The superstructure was becoming overgrown and ruinous and part was used as a labourers' and masons' workshop (Noake seems to imply they were using part of it as a latrine). It was the subject of an ownership dispute in 1675. In 1676 it was leased to the bishop, and then consisted of the ruins, two chambers at the west end, and gardens extending to the riverside wall (the property measuring 165 feet by 44 feet) {4}.

The plot was then (in 1677 according to Green and Willis) leased to Mr Price (chapter clerk and registrar 1675-1705) to build a new house. The lease covered the chambers and garden ground, together with the 'free use of the floor of the said charnel house there for a court before and passage to an intended new house to be built where the said chambers now stand, and upon the ground adjoining'. The walls of the ruinous charnel house were to be taken down to the level of the bottom of the windows and the materials were to be re-used to cope the reduced walls and to make 'a new substantial wall' to divide the plot from the bishop's palace and grounds. There was a covenant not to alter or meddle with the vault where the bones lay. {5}.

There was an anchorite's house or cell near the chapel in the medieval period {6}.

According to Valentine Green, the charnel chapel was actually built by Cantilupe's predecessor, Bishop Blois, to accommodate bones disturbed by the extension of the cathedral church. Other historical details as above. In Valentine Green's day parts of the north and south walls survived, enclosing the court before the house of 1677-9 (10 College Yard). The crypt survived, measuring 58 feet long by 22 feet wide by about 14 feet high. The bones were piled up within in it either side of a central aisle, in such a way as to allow access from its west door (closed when the chapel was demolished) to the far end. The only access in Green's day was via a former window on the south side 'generally stopped up'. Green included a plan of the crypt with his plan of the cathedral {7}.

In 1991 a geophysical survey (GPR) of the chapel site revealed the profile of the vaulted crypt together with the bones piled up inside it (WCM 100294) {8}. Photographic recording was also undertaken in 1991 by C Guy and Phil Barker, together with the GPR survey by Peter Barker, prior to sealing off the vault (WCM 100293). The investigation showed that only the western bay of the crypt survived the lowering of levels north of the cathedral in 1866 intact. The bays to the east were re vaulted at a lower level in brick, the vault making use of soil piled over the bones as a former; when investigated, the soil still bore the impression of the brickwork even though the soil had settled to a level clear of the vault. The south and west walls of the intact bay were found to have windows 'splayed upwards' and extending above the vault, though each had been given a new lintel. Access to the crypt was via a door in the west wall with a pointed arch on the outside and a flat segmental rear arch inside. The vaulted roof had ribs of green ?Highley sandstone and rib intersections of ?Bath stone. Where the crypt was truncated by the lowering of levels in 1866 a partition wall had been built across the interior, cannibalising sections of vault rib from the demolished bays. Chris Guy speculated that the crypt might be early Norman rather than early 13th-century noting a similarity 'in shape and profile' with the reredorter undercroft {9}.

No.10 College Yard is Listed Grade II (620-1/16/196) {10}.

scheduled ancient monument 343a

Cross-reference to: 96016, Bishop's Palace enclosure
Cross-reference to: 96385, The Lay Cemetery

Sources and further reading

Related records

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