| Summary : The best preserved standing remains of Thornton Abbey are of its gatehouse and somewhat later barbican. The gatehouse is a three storey structure built largely of brick with magnesian limestone and more local ironstone ashlar dressings and decorative details. It was probably begun in 1377, replacing an earlier gatehouse on approximately the same site; the licence to crenellate granted in 1382 probably marks its completion. It appears originally to have had an administrative function, perhaps contained the Abbot's exchequer and courthouse. Its survival despite the demolition suffered by the rest of the abbey probably reflects its later use as a gatehouse for post-dissolution residences, including Sir Vincent Skinner's short-lived house built in about 1607 (record 1501692). Three floors were built above a central gate-passage. The first housed a great hall. The second and third contained a complex of pasages and rooms. The gatehouse underneath is vaulted at the rear to two oak gates, probably original. The front of the gatehouse is richly ornamented but has lost most of its battlements on which originally stood statues of men-at-arms and artisans. Approaching the gatehouse from the front is a barbican consisting of two parallel brick walls 38 metres long and ending in round turrets, flanked by projecting arms of the moat. This was added to the gatehouse, probably not long after its completion (although there has been prolonged debate on this point), and is not perpendicular to the main building, being aligned on the approach from Thornton village. Wing-walls, added by 1389, flank the gatehouse to the north and south. The building's roof and floors were replaced by Lord Yarborough in the 1830s; it is now in the care of English Heritage. |
More information : (TA 11611896) Gatehouse (NAT) (1)
I Thornton Abbey Gatehouse
Ancient Monument. Gatehouse of Augustinian Abbey (founded 1139),
built 1382. Raised from priory to abbey 1148. Dissolved 1539 but
refounded as a college, 1539-46. See C.L., 1935. N.B.R. (2)
TA 116189 - Thornton Abbey - scheduled. (3)
TA 1172 1899. Thornton Abbey Augustinian monastery: gatehouse,
precinct, medieval road and bridge, moat, fishponds, post-Dissolution
college and school, and house. Scheduled RSM No 13377.
The best preserved standing remains are of the abbey gatehouse. This
is a three storey structure built largely of brick and originally
rendered with white mortar. It was built in the 1360s and enlarged
and defended after licence to fortify was granted to the abbey in
1382. It appears to hae had an administrative function as it
contained the Abbot's exchequer and courthouse. Three floors were
built above a central gate-passage. The first housed a great hall
witha fireplace and oriel window. The second and third contained a
complex of passages and rooms and included a large room on the second
floor originally divided with wooden partitions. In addition there
were 8 privies and a latrine. The gate passage below is vaulted and
leads at the rear to two original oak gates which date to the 14th
century. The frontof the gatehouse is richly ornamented but has lost
most of its battlements on which originallly stood statues of men-at-
arms and artisans. Other statues stood in niches on the front wall
and a number of these survive. Approaching the gatehouse from the
front is a arbican consisting of two parallel brick walls 38m long
and ending in round turrets. This was built in c.1382 and is
believed to have ended in a drawbridge which led over a now in-filled
extension of the moat. Wing-walls flank the gatehouse to N and S and
turn at right-angles to enclose the inner precinct of the abbey.
The gatehouse, barbican and precinct walls are Listed Grade I. (4)
In 2007-10, English Heritage's Archaeological Survey and Investigation Team led a multidisciplinary investigation of Thornton Abbey in North Lincolnshire. In addition to a Level 3 analytical field survey at 1:1 000 scale, covering 8.5 hectares between the Skitter Beck and the gatehouse, the project also comprised rapid examination of the remainder of the precinct and its environs, documentary research, rapid architectural investigation of the standing remains, analysis of Lidar imagery and aerial survey to National Mapping Programme standards of what is believed to be the medieval North Bail, covering a further 10ha, where earthworks that survived until the 1950s have subsequently been levelled by ploughing. The findings of geophysical surveys carried out by English Heritage in 1995 were also taken into account.
The new documentary research threw up a number of sources not previously consulted, including numerous post-medieval depictions of the gatehouse held in several Lincolnshire archives and private collections. Shown unroofed, overgrown and partially ruinous by Nattes in 1797, the decline of the building was reversed in the 1830s by the 1st Earl of Yarborough through the reinstatement of the roof and floors and removal of the encroaching trees and ivy. The Thornton Chronicle suggests that the construction of the gatehouse began in 1377 and was essentially complete by 1382, with the wing walls added by 1389. The Calendar of Patent Rolls refers to 'a new building [domus] over and beside the gate', a form of words which implies the enlargement of a pre-existing building, and recent observations of the structure could support the theory that there was originally a smaller two-storey building on the site, incorporating the extant porter's lodge now set to the south of the gate passage (6a). This may be significant, given that the central axis of what seems to have been the broad medieval avenue, or corridor of movement, between the gate and the west front of the church is not aligned on the present gate passage, but fractionally to its south, in other words on the porter's lodge of the 1380s building. The fragmentary gates, which appear to be be original, combine local oak panels with imported baltic oak frames.
Although most of the abbey's buildings appear to have stood until the arrival of Sir Vincent Skinner in about 1602, the survival of the gatehouse can only be accounted for by its deliberate retention as a gatehouse for the short-lived stately home he built in about 1607. For the next two centuries, antiquarian interest seems to have ensured its continued preservation.
A detailed and extensively illustrated report, part of the Research Department Report Series, is available from the NMR, reference RDRS 100/2010. (6) |