XIV. ABBOT’S HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD, AND ITS PREDECESSORS.

The close alliance which exists between architecture and national history is a commonplace, and a review of its connection in each of the several departments into which it is divided is an unfailing and fruitful source of study. The larger classifications of domestic, ecclesiastical, and military building will always absorb the energies of our chief writers, and in them we can see the more important and national movements portrayed, and in no small measure explained. But there are many other ways of pursuing this interesting inquiry, and one of the most attractive is by the examination of a single type of building allocated to a special purpose, which can be traced through succeeding periods, and in which we can see the effect of the larger changes step by step. These sidepaths of architectural history differ from one another in their relative interest and importance, and some lead us only a certain distance, having been deserted by those generations for whom they have had no further use—the blind alleys of a former pilgrimage. Others, however, continue with us to the present day, and furnish in their history a complete and connected story of ancient and modern times.

One of the most complete series of buildings in our own country is furnished by those familiar groups of cottages which we know as almshouses, and which persist even at the present time, impatient though we be of the early traditions with which they are linked. The claims that the almshouse makes upon our attention and our interest are very many. Yet beyond the occasional sketch or monograph, and the modest note in a town or county history, these beautiful buildings have received little of the study and appreciation which they deserve.

From the time of the Norman kings and in almost all the succeeding years the almshouse, or its ancient precursor the hospital, has handed down to us the most charming specimens of the domestic architecture of each period. More than that, the almshouse, being essentially a home for a number of people, furnishes us with examples of the grouping of several units of building and of the methods of composition and arrangement which were successively in vogue. Nor was it merely a domestic structure even after the secularising influence of the monastic dissolution, for in the majority of cases it had its chapel—reminding us of the private chapels which were once in every mansion—and again it partook of the nature of a public building with its common rooms and dining hall. The very nature of the almshouse and the perpetuity of its endowment was a safeguard against the careless destruction to which private property is so often subject, and the humble station of its occupants averted the ruthless hand of the “improver” until the lamented advent of the Charity Commissioners. This same humble conservatism has preserved for us in many cases that most notable mediæval idea of community of living, which was of the essence of monasticism, and the little families or societies, each with its warden, brethren, and sisters, have not yet been wholly swept away, but survive here and there in the very homes which saw their first gathering. With the persistence of the idea remain also many of the objects which were most intimately connected with its ritual or ceremonial: the courtyard with its gatehouses to isolate and defend it, the cloister and the chapel for common life and worship, beside such insignia and furniture as its gowns and corporate seal, its plate, stained glass, pictures, and books. In a hundred different details we can recognise the wonderful story of the past which has not quite died in the midst of the present. Here is the history of an important institution which, in its successive modification or development, and in the gradual secularisation of its early character, provides a running commentary on English social life. It is also the history of an interesting type of building which in the beauty and variety of its forms provides a significant index to the changing modes of architecture and the allied arts.

The pre-Reformation hospital, maison-dieu, bedehouse, or almshouse has had a careful and generally well-informed historian in Miss R. M. Clay, whose work entitled English Mediæval Hospitals was published by Messrs. Methuen in their Antiquary’s Library. Miss Clay’s work is valuable in its examination of the typical life of the hospital and of its status as compared with the monastic institutions of the Church; but beyond the interesting glimpses which she gives into the customs of this earlier period we are still without a proper comparative study of the whole subject. As is so often the case with a settled institution of this kind, the architectural problem contains the key to many outstanding features of its constitution, and until a complete collection of plans is available we shall not have the material for an exhaustive history. Happily, however, enough is known to allow an intelligible outline to be drawn, in which it is probable that most of the examples will be found ultimately to have their place. In the present paper I shall attempt to set down this outline only in its barest form, making of it a slight introduction to a note on the Jacobean hospital of Archbishop Abbot at Guildford, and a further comment on the types which followed the buildings here illustrated.

The aim and purpose of the mediæval almshouse—to afford rest and help to the needy traveller, the sick, and the aged—was an essentially Christian idea, and was from the first definitely associated with the Church. And, indeed, if it had not been officially identified with the Church it could not have avoided the influence and direction of the great spiritual organisation that absorbed the generous impulses of the period. The monastic orders themselves were at first the chief vehicles for charity, and the giving of alms being one of the first principles of Christian life, the nobles and wealthy ecclesiastics seconded the efforts of the monks by their liberal gifts and constantly open tables, as we may read in the pages of John Stow and other writers. But at the same time there were instituted societies of the poor alone, following in a measure the monastic orders, and endowed by individual philanthropists. It was not necessary for these men to subscribe to the vow of poverty (though sometimes required of them), for they were already destitute, and dependent entirely upon the charity of their founders, and no doubt this very circumstance made their foundations have a more deeply religious aspect in the eyes of the mediæval Church. Thus we find the first hospitals formed into small companies of brethren, each with a master or chaplain elected from their number, each clothed with a special gown and under some rule of religious observance.

F. T. Dollman in his Examples of Domestic Architecture (1858) was one of the earliest writers to point out the two chief models upon which the hospital plan was formed. The original type, and that more convenient for the sick and disabled, followed the plan of the monastic infirmary—an aisled hall with a chapel generally at the east end, looking for all practical purposes like the aisled nave of a church with its chancel. The aisles, or, where they were absent, the two sides of the nave, formed two dormitories along which were ranged the beds for the sick, who could thus hear and enjoy the services without rising from their couch or passing the door of their little cubicles. In large hospitals the nave was divided into two floors, the chapel being taken the total height of both, and being divided from them by a double screen. This may be conveniently termed the dormitory plan, from its central and distinguishing feature. The hall itself was not, however, an isolated building, but, like its prototype the infirmary, had its own outbuildings, its kitchen and stores, occasionally its cloister, and sometimes a separate master’s house.

Fig. 90.—PLANS OF INFIRMARY TYPES:⁠—BEAMSLEY HOSPITAL, YORKS; ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL, CHICHESTER; THE BEDE HOUSE, HIGHAM FERRERS; BROWNE’S HOSPITAL, STAMFORD.

The second method of arrangement was based upon the Carthusian plan of separate dwellings or cells, generally grouped around a cloister or courtyard, and this proved not only the most useful provision for inmates who were not bedridden, but a popular compromise, as it were, in that it afforded a way of dispensing with the stricter monastic idea without losing the benefits of communal life. Thus arose the recognised almshouse plan of post-Reformation days, which persists to our own time.

The dormitory plan seems at first sight a somewhat primitive method, and the thirteenth-century building of St. Mary’s Hospital, Chichester, where the almspeople still live under the one wide roof of their great hall, is looked upon as a singular survival from another age. The idea, no doubt, in its communal aspect, is a distinctly mediæval one, but a little reflection will show that it was also a perfectly sound one. Our hospitals for the sick of the present day have their wards with a large number of beds side by side, and the up-to-date Rowton lodging-house is composed of long apartments divided by dwarf partitions into cubicles not dissimilar to those of the ancient hospitals. Mr. Edward S. Prior has long shown that the Middle Ages had their own very sound ideas on sanitation, and there is no reason to believe that these lofty infirmaries were not perfectly clean and wholesome. For the sick, at least, they formed practically the only satisfactory arrangement, and we know that in many foundations the sisterhood was the nursing staff for the aged and bedridden poor. The greater number of these infirmary halls have been destroyed. Wigston’s Hospital, Leicester (1513), must have been a building of wonderful size and beauty with its two storeys and chapel to the east. Its sister establishment, Trinity Hospital (“The Newarke”) reconstituted in 1355, the buildings of which still exist, included a dean, 12 secular canons, 12 vicars, 3 clerks, 6 choristers, 50 poor men, 50 poor women, and 10 nurses. Examples of surviving halls are to be found in the Bede House, Higham Ferrers (1423); St. John’s Hospital, Northampton (founded 1140); Browne’s Hospital, Stamford (c. 1485); St. John’s Hospital, Sherborne (1437); St. Mary Magdalene’s, Glastonbury (thirteenth century); St. Nicholas, Salisbury (1214); St. Saviour’s, Wells (1436). The beautiful hospital of St. Giles, Norwich, called also the Great Hospital (founded 1246), with its cloister and master’s house, is attached to the church of St. Helen, part of the latter being divided up into wards after the ancient manner, the women in the Eagle ward (the chancel) to the east, and the men in the nave towards the west. Browne’s Hospital, Stamford, has a fine “audit” room over the dormitory which occupies the usual position west of the chapel. (See plan, p. 221.)

Fig. 91.—QUADRANGLE, LEICESTER’S HOSPITAL, WARWICK.

Fig. 92.—GREAT CHAMBER, WHITGIFT HOSPITAL.

Drawn by

W. H. Godfrey.

The examples of the second type of plan—the group of separate dwellings round a courtyard—date chiefly from the fifteenth century and onwards. Courtyards and quadrangular forms of building had, of course, been connected with the dormitory type, for this was the recognised method of mediæval planning (cf. Browne’s Hospital, Stamford, and St. Cross, Winchester), but the new quadrangle was a departure in principle from the older plan, and, as noted above, it followed the establishments of the Carthusian order. An early instance of a new foundation with quadrangle and cloister walk is the well-known hospital at Ewelme (Oxon), founded by the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk—the latter a granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer—in 1434. Here the almshouses are situated close to the parish church, to which they are connected by a passage at the tower, and, as the south aisle was specially allocated to the brethren, the presence of a separate chapel was rendered unnecessary. The second of the two foundations connected with the Great Hospital of St. Cross seems to have been responsible for the beautiful stone cottages which still stand, having been probably erected by Cardinal Beaufort in 1445, and here the noble church of the older hospital performs the function of the chapel. With St. Cross should be compared such foundations as the Vicar’s Close at Wells (which has many similarities to the almshouse or hospital) and the colleges of chantry priests, one at least of which—the college at Cobham in Kent (1362)—was in 1597 converted into an almshouse proper under the title of New College. Occasionally the quadrangle was so small as to be scarcely more than an “area” in the building, each room of which was the home of a different occupant. Such is Ford’s Hospital, Coventry (1529), commonly called the Grey Friars, a specimen of Gothic woodwork which has often been illustrated on account of its great richness. Timber-built almshouses are not infrequent, and the Earl of Leicester’s fine hospital at Warwick (1571) has a quadrangular plan of two storeys, each with a graceful cloister of wooden arcading.

Fig. 93.—LEICESTER’S HOSPITAL, WARWICK.

Fig. 94.—LEICESTER’S HOSPITAL.

Drawn by

W. H. Godfrey.

These hospitals with their separate dwellings show many minor differences of plan. A dining hall, a “great chamber” or common room, and a kitchen, were often included in the range of buildings or were annexed to it. The gatehouse or simple gateway, the master’s rooms, the muniment room, and the outside staircases, gave opportunity for variation in grouping; and the hospital chapel, when present, invested the whole block with its chief distinction. At Warwick the hospital has the use of the old Guild Chapel over the west town-gate that still survives.

The influence of the Reformation was most decidedly in favour of those institutions which, like the last considered, adopted only semi-monastic customs. Prejudice against the monasteries had sunk too deep to allow of the older establishments remaining unharmed, and many were reconstituted so as to conform to the later ideas. The independence of thought fostered by the Reformation, and the individualism which directed the Renaissance, both made for the confirmation and extension of the system of separate dwellings. Occasionally we get a reversion to the old type, as in the curious little building of Beamsley Hospital, Yorks (1593), which is circular, the chapel being in the middle and lighted by a clerestory, while seven cubicles surrounding it form an ambulatory, very much like the circular aisle of the nave to the Temple Church. (See plan, p. 221.) Exceptions though there may be, the principle of community of interest remained sufficiently familiar to the people in their trade guilds and companies to prevent their dispensing with the hospital idea and substituting what in modern times we call outdoor relief. So the incorporated hospital continued, and quadrangles were still planned, but now in the manner of the courtyards of the rapidly advancing domestic architecture of the day.

Fig. 95.—WHITGIFT HOSPITAL.

Plan by W. H. Godfrey.

Fig. 96.—ABBOT’S HOSPITAL.

The dissolution of the monasteries had made the necessity for almshouses even greater than it had been before, and we find that the problem of the poor had assumed serious proportions by the reign of Elizabeth, and led to a great increase in the number of hospitals. They continued to become augmented, and the records of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are crowded with the names of the new foundations. The Whitgift Hospital, Croydon (1597); Jesus Hospital, Lyddington (1602); Sackville College, East Grinstead (1608); Weekley Hospital, Northants (1611); Chipping Campden (1612); the three hospitals of the Earl of Northampton—Trinity Hospital, Greenwich (1613); Trinity Hospital, Castle Rising (1614); and Trinity Hospital, Clun (1614)—Coningsby Hospital, Hereford (1614); Eyre’s Hospital, Salisbury (1617); Abbot’s Hospital, Guildford (1619); Wyatt’s Hospital, Godalming (1622); Penrose Almshouses, Barnstaple (1627); and Jesus Hospital, Bray (1627)—these are a few of the interesting buildings of about the time of James I., and the Guildford example is in many ways typical of them all, although the contemporary enthusiasm for design found in them wide opportunities for variation. Archbishop Abbot had before him the fine example of his predecessor, John Whitgift, whose hospital at Croydon attracted wide notice, if we are to believe the contemporary testimony of John Stow, and probably Whitgift’s work inspired many of the later benefactors to imitate him. The two buildings are curiously similar in plan, although there is a marked difference in their architectural treatment, the work at Guildford being more pretentious than that of the earlier hospital. In both cases the administrative block or rather that containing the principal and common apartments, was placed on the side opposite to the entrance with its gatehouse, the cottages of the pensioners occupying the rest of the courtyard. In this they were following in effect the usual plan of the larger country houses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the same rooms being provided in the main block as were required for private occupation, while the usual quarters of the domestic staff are here transferred to the almspeople. The common hall or dining-room occupied a position near the centre—at Croydon to the left, and at Guildford to the right of the passage and archway into the gardens. In each building the kitchen is placed in the extreme left-hand corner, and the chapel in a similar position to the right. The house of the warden or master, however, is at Croydon placed over the common hall and kitchen, and contains the “audience” or great chamber as its principal apartment, whereas at Guildford the master occupies a part of the street front, the great chamber (called here the library) being placed, as before, over the hall.

Fig. 97.—ABBOT’S HOSPITAL. COURTYARD.

Fig. 98.—ABBOT’S HOSPITAL. LOWER HALL.

Fig. 99.—ABBOT’S HOSPITAL. UPPER HALL.

Abbot’s Hospital provides for some twenty-five inmates, including the master, as compared with forty at Whitgift; but, as already remarked, it is more ambitious in its architectural treatment. The quadrangle is entered by a fine brick tower with four octagonal turrets, in the centre of the street front. The tower is of three storeys, and like the rest of the building is of brick with stone dressings, the turrets being taken up a good height above the parapet, and finished with excellent lead-covered cupolas, and vanes. The two opposite lateral blocks which enclose the courtyard are projected towards the street to form wings, and are finished with Dutch gables. The windows on the ground and first floors vary from four to five lights in width and are divided by transomes. The quadrangle itself is quietly treated; a shallow stepped gable on the side opposite to the tower gives space for a clock and a tablet below is inscribed with the name of the founder, while an octagonal cupola is raised above the roof. Perhaps the finest external features are the cut brick chimney-stacks with separate octagonal shafts and finely moulded caps and bases. The internal work in the chief rooms and in the master’s house is of a sumptuous character, and points to the fact that Archbishop Abbot—like Whitgift before him—intended as much to leave a “monument of his own time” behind him as a noble work of charity. The Jacobean fan-treatment of the doorways is very well executed, and all the woodwork is substantial and well made. Both the hall and the great chamber above—the latter of which is panelled—have good chimneypieces and overmantels, and there is much excellent furniture.

In this self-contained and well-appointed building is housed a little community which differs very slightly from those of the pre-Reformation hospitals. The ideas of the early part of the seventeenth century have relaxed the severity of the monastic rule somewhat, and have given to the architectural features much of the new character of the Renaissance. Enough, however, of the old conception, both of establishment and of fabric, remains to link it definitely with its predecessors, and to witness to the continuity of the old conception of a charitable refuge for the poor.

Fig. 100.—ABBOT’S HOSPITAL, DETAIL OF DOOR.

Drawn by

Sydney A. Newcombe.

Further illustration of this fact can be adduced from the large number of similar examples found in the succeeding periods. In whatever age the almshouse was built the idea was recognised as perennially “old-fashioned,” and the style of its architecture is therefore inevitably of a somewhat earlier character than seems warranted by its actual date. Each builder in turn raised his building intentionally in a somewhat antique manner, and as the seventeenth century advanced the Jacobean detail gave way very slowly before the new fashions of the later Renaissance. The gatehouse disappeared, but the gateway remained; the street front and its two wings assumed the Queen Anne treatment of heavy cornice and hipped roofs. The cloistered arcade, which in Christ’s Hospital, Abingdon (1553), and Penrose Almshouses, Barnstaple (1627), had been placed in front of the buildings, reverted to the manner of Ewelme (1434) and surrounded the inner court as at Bromley College (1666) and Morden College, Blackheath (1695). The chapel was placed generally in the centre of the farther side of the square, and projected from it, or stood alone at the end of the perspective of two lines of cottages as at Trinity Ground, Mile End (1695). The simple row of almshouses, too, which existed at all periods for smaller buildings, was developed and often cleverly grouped on either side of the central feature of the chapel, as at Colfe’s Almshouses, Lewisham (1664). The variations in the style of the architecture are unending, and numerous features such as heraldic shields, sundials, cupolas, stone terraces, stained glass, statuary, furniture, are scattered about them, here in profusion, there in fewer number, but none the less tasteful and in keeping. A few examples occur to one at random in addition to those just mentioned:⁠—Ingram’s Hospital, York (1640); Smyth’s Almshouses, Maidenhead (1659); Lucas’s Hospital, Wokingham (1663); Corsham Almshouses (1668); Kirkleatham Hospital, Yorks (1676); Jesus Hospital, Newcastle (1681); Collegium Matrarum, Salisbury (1682); Winwood’s Almshouses, Quainton (1687); Hall’s Almshouses, Bradford-on-Avon (1700); Fishmongers’ Almshouses, Yarmouth (1702); Trinity Almshouses, Salisbury (1702); Collins’s Almshouses, Nottingham (1709); Christ’s Hospital (second building, 1718) and Tompkin’s Almshouses, Abingdon (1733); Somerset Hospital, Petworth (1746); and Millington’s Hospital, Shrewsbury (1748). Several of these names are well-known, and will recall to the reader’s mind the character of the almshouse that obtained until the middle of the eighteenth century. There has been no lack of similar buildings since, but they have suffered from the general decline in the art of building. They have also revived with the renewed interest of the present day in the old methods, and they compete, and will still compete, successfully with the scattered cottage homes which are for the moment in vogue. The virtue in the old ideas, whether in the economy and beauty afforded to the buildings or in the charm and usefulness of the little close community, has not gone away. An institution that has stood the test of 800 years, and has weathered the storms of such varied social changes, is bound to live and flourish for many years to come, and it is to be hoped that the original examples, weatherworn, but with the beauty of age and of their time-honoured usefulness upon them, will be preserved to show the future the triumphs of their modest excellence.

The foregoing is but an imperfect little sketch of a subject which is of wide interest and endless fascination. Sir Christopher Wren well understood the significance of the idea, and with his customary skill he has given us a fine interpretation of its beauty in his Royal Hospital at Chelsea. Here is a good starting point for the Londoner, from which he may trace the story backwards.

—W. H. G.

THE FRIARS AS BUILDERS

Fig. 101.—BLACKFRIARS, NORWICH.