| Description: | For general description of the building, its orientation, and outline history, see the MD3 monument description (No. 11055). This description concentrates of additions and alterations of the period MD4, principally in the second and third ranges. A survey of 1749 provides much useful information about the building at its greatest extent, and many hints as to the medieval arrangement of the building (it is this, for instance, which records that the great hall was still open to the roof, cf. MD3 description). The plan has been seen in the cathedral archives by Ann Hamlin and John Allan, at the time of their respective phases of observation work (REN 405; cf. references in Allan and Thorp 1990, throughout). Despite the accumulation of further work in the context of the UAD, no reference for this survey has come to light, and it has thus not been re-examined, or mapped (a copy was on the wall of the Deanery chapel in 1999, pers. comm. Richard Parker).
The second range contains a grand first-floor hall, or great chamber, with a parlour below. The roof of the hall belongs to the group of Exeter roofs which also includes the Archdeacon of Exeter’s house, the Law Library, the Guildhall, Bowhill, and Cadhay, Ottery St Mary (Blaylock forthcoming). In this case some of the typical elements, such as bosses, windbraces, etc., are missing, but the main diagnostic elements, of main and intermediate trusses, and coved upper section, moulded timbers, etc, are present. Dendrochronological sampling of the floor and roof timbers of the hall in 1998-9 yielded dates broadly in the first half of the 15th century for the timbers; no sapwood had survived on the samples (and thus the dates proposed are necessarily imprecise). There appeared to be two groupings: the timbers of the floor gave an estimated felling-date range of AD 1400-35; those from the roof an estimated felling-date range of AD 1417-52 (Howard et al., 2000, unpaginated). The building is thus most likely to have been constructed within 10-15 years of 1425-30. Numerous early 16th-century additions attest a building phase at this time, most probably under Bishop John Veysey (bishop 1519-51 and 1553-4), who was Dean before he was Bishop, and may have continued to live in the Deanery after his translation). The work is ascribed to him on the basis of a carved Beer-stone fireplace in the downstairs parlour of the second range, bearing his monogram and episcopal insignia (Bishop and Prideaux 1922, 55-6); other work possibly of the same period is the moulded beamed ceiling with composite bosses (similar to the fragment surviving in No. 15 The Close, see Monument No. 11117); the refurbishment of the third range (see below); and the three-storied jettied construction in the screens passage bay of the great hall in the first block of the building (cf. MD3 monument description, 11055; Blaylock 1993, 4-8; idem 1999, 1-3). It should be noted that, before the dendrochronological work of 1999 described above, the whole ensemble had been suggested as work done under Veysey (i.e. including the reconstruction of the second block), and this has influenced various earlier accounts of the building (Allan and Thorp 1990, 46; Blaylock 1990, 131-3; idem 1993; 1999); the early-mid.-15th century date has necessitated a re-think of the proposed structural history which has yet to be published (although cf. Blaylock forthcoming for the dating and the roof).
The fireplace of the great chamber has a confused history: the plain stone fireplace now in position is a modern introduction, replacing the ornate fireplace from the Precentor’s House which was introduced in the 19th century, and removed into store in the 1970s (cf. Cherry and Pevsner 1989, 415; Monument description 11125, below; Knight 1968, 24 shows a photograph of the fireplace in situ). Prior to that, ‘a beautiful “Early Decorated” chimney piece, which had been too badly mutilated by an unknown improver to remain exposed…’ (Lega-Weekes 1915, 77) occupied this position. When the Precentor’s mantelpiece was removed in the 1970s, some traces of a moulded and decorated fireplace were observed and it is reported that the present modern fireplace is a reconstruction which took elements visible in 1972 and extrapolated them in simplified form (pers. comm. John Allan, reporting a conversation with Peter Dare, then the head mason of the Cathedral). John Allan also suggests (pers. comm.) that the original is likely to have been a late-Perpendicular style fireplace of the sort widely seen in other Close buildings, although details are not known, and now are probably beyond recovery.
The third block contains some earlier (perhaps 14th century?) remnants (the remains of a volcanic stone doorway, inter alia), but was largely rebuilt in the early 16th century (Allan and Thorp 1990, 46). This comprised a first-floor inner room, with a three-bay arch-braced roof (now concealed but recorded in the early 1980s, cf. Blaylock 1999, Fig. 3; Lega-Weekes 1915, 77), and a fireplace with plain quatrefoils on the lintel, in similar style to the one with Veysey’s monogram in the second range (above). The 1749 survey described this block as a ground-floor kitchen with the best bedchamber on the first floor. Still further west, little is known of the fourth block; it is thought to be largely modern with possible remnants of medieval fabric (Allan and Thorp 1990, 46).
Although the chapel has early origins, all that can be seen of its fabric now appears to be late medieval; the exterior masonry is of breccia, and on the inside the roof, with carved bosses, ribs and angels corbels (Cherry and Pevsner 1989, 415) would be consistent with a mid.- or late-15th century date.
Interim addition: A copy of the 1749 plan referred to above has now been located and copied, and the mapping of the monuments in periods MD4, PM1 and PM2 have been extended on this basis (EUAD monument no. 11123). The core of the southern range, described in 1749 as the brewhouse and stables, has been presumed for mapping purposes to originate in the MD4 and PM1 periods; ancillary buildings to the west of this range, and to the north and west of the main range, depicted in 1749 have been assigned provisionally to the PM2 period. Further work in 2005 and 2006 (on the Conservation Plan and on recording work in the Deanery) will add still further to the knowledge of the development of the building, and will provide references to the 1749 plan, the original of which has now been located in the Cathedral archives. [Original monument description by SRB, 24.viii.00; addition SRB, 30.x.06]
Extant: Yes |
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