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| Name: | Circular structure outside chapter house |
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| HER Reference: | WCM96386 |
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| Type of record: | Monument |
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| Grid Reference: | SO 850 544 |
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| Map Sheet: | SO85SE |
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| Parish: | Worcester (Non Civil Parish), Worcester City, Worcestershire |
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Monument Types
- BUILDING (Unknown date)
- BUILDING (EARLY MEDIEVAL - 411 AD to 1065 AD (between))
- BUILDING (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))
Associated Events
- Chapter House Lawn (Ref: WCM100096)
- Chapter House area (Ref: WCM100171)
- Chapter House Lawn (Ref: WCM100192)
Full description
Excavations (WCM 100096, 100192) east of the chapter house (WCM 96372) from 1994 onwards revealed a curving wall, concentric about the chapter house and three metres outside it. The wall survives as a mortared sandstone rubble foundation 1.5m wide with a rubble core and facing blocks. Radial 'sleeper walls' extend out from under the 14th-century buttresses of the chapter house to join the curving wall, with which they are contemporary. On the outer face of the curving wall at these points are clasping buttresses. The curving wall has been excavated over a large enough area to show that it is truly circular and not apsidal. The curving and radial walls are stratified beneath the 14th-century elements of the chapter house and appear to be either contemporary with or earlier than the Norman chapter house. The excavators maintain that the walls do not make sense as an ambulatory, which would be an unparalleled feature if attached to a chapter house, and must pre-date the chapter house. The line of the circular wall, if extended north of the chapter house, would run under the slype/East Parlour (WCM 96374) and lie just outside the south-west transept, which may have been sited to avoid it. Comparisons are drawn between this and Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aachen; it is larger than any rotundas known from pre-Conquest England (e.g. Wulfric's rotunda at St Augustine's, Canterbury). If this was part of one of the pre-Conquest cathedral churches, the most likely candidate may be St Peter's (see WCM 96368) {1}.
Excavation remains unpublished 2020 (JD)
(note: this record number previously allocated to the chapel of St Nicholas)
designation scheduled monument
Sources and further reading
| <*> | Unpublished document: Crawford, Dr Sally. 1996. Worcester Cathedral Chapter House Lawn Excavations 1996 - Assessment Report. University of Birmingham. |
| <1> | Article in monograph: Guy, C. 2001. The Anglo-Saxon Rotunda. Worcester Cathedral, a short history. Barker, P A and Romain, C, Logaston Press. 94-96. |
| <2> | Article in serial: Crawford, S. 1998. Excavations at Worcester Cathedral chapter house lawn 1997. Archaeology at Worcester Cathedral, report of the eighth annual symposium. Guy, C. 1998. 3-6. |
| <3> | Article in serial: Guy, C. 1996. Archaeological work in 1996. Archaeology at Worcester Cathedral, report of the sixth annual symposium. Barker, P, and Guy, C, Worcester Cathedral, Worces. 1996. 1-3. |
Related records
| WCM96622 | Part of: Cathedral Priory and Precinct (Monument) |
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