Monument Type(s):

• COLLEGE OF SECULAR PRIESTS (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1540 AD)
• HOUSE (15th century - 1400 AD to 1499 AD) + Sci.Date

Summary

This site represents: a house of medieval date, a college of secular priests of medieval date. The site is protected by Grade II* Listing.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA5917 - 1996-1997 field visit as part of SUAD

Description

15th-century timber framed range embedded in later buildings, now divided between St Winefred's Convent and Clive House. Range runs north-south [<1><2>] <3>

This is the most obvious of the timber-framed survivals within the college complex of the medieval College of St Chad. It straddles the odd curtilage boundary between Clive House and No 3 College Court ... At least two bays of the building survive to truss height, and there may be a third at the northern end, between it and [another surviving building: see PRN 62139]. To the south of the known bays the spacing between the first floor bridging beam of the last bay and a ceiling beam to the south is the same approximate bay length as in the surviving bays and could suggest another, albeit fragmentary, surviving piece of the fabric. The building appears to have been a little over 4.5m wide with its two obviously surviving bays about 2.9m long; the northernmost bay is just 2.1m long. Virtually nothing is visible of the side frames ... Three cross frames survive more or less intact ... Three closed trusses survive in the roof space ... [a more detailed structural description of these surviving elements in the source]. ->

-> This building was obviously an important structure within the college. The plain character of the roof and the existence of first-floor bridging and girding beams suggests that it was of two storeys rather than being a major ground-floor hall open to the roof. Nevertheless, the ground floor was very tall and the character of the matched doorways in the close studded cross frame could imply that the space to the south was a fine late medieval ground floor hall, perhaps originally with a finely carved ceiling structure. The bay to the north of the doorways may have been divided axially to create two small rooms, and such a layout would have been typical of the buttery and pantry reached through separate doorways at the low end of a hall ... The northern bay seems, at ground floor level, to have been a passageway between the main part of the building and the range to the north [PRN 62139]. ->

-> The dateable features in this building suggest a broad late medieval date, of probably c1500 and certainly prior to the dissolution of the college. It would appear that this building was an important part of the communal life of the college, perhaps its last hall and services. When the mid 18th century house was built much of the southern part appears to have been dismantled and the remains encased in brick. At the same time the roof spaces were altered to accommodate attic storeys and a taller roof <4>

A programme of dendrochronological survey was undertaken of the structures which constitute Clive House (PRN 10198). ->

-> The outlines of a medieval timber-framed house can be discerned within the building, including the remains of a spere truss, a lower-end truss, and part of the hall, all dated to 1504-34. Two doorways with elaborately carved heads of 15th-century style are believed to have been brought in. <5><6>

<01> Baker Nigel J & Morriss Richard K, 1996, Visit Notes, Apr 1996 (Site visit report). SSA10544.

<02> Shrewsbury Borough Museums, 1987, Clive House Past and Present (Leaflet). SSA10543.

<03> Baker Nigel J, UAD Analysis (SMR comment). SSA20432.

<04> Morriss Richard K, 1997, The College of St Chad, Shrewsbury: Notes on the surviving fabric (Site visit report). SSA10695.

<05> Worthington M, 2011, Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory List of Dated Buildings (Shropshire) (Online database). SSA27695.

<06> Miles D W H and Worthington M, 2002, List 128: Shropshire Dendrochronology Project - phase nine, p.99 (Article in serial). SSA28143.

Sources

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