When Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, had induced Queen Elizabeth to grant a Charter of Incorporation to a University to be established in Dublin, he addressed himself to the Mayor and Corporation of the City with a view to obtaining a suitable site. And, happily for the success of the scheme which he and the more academic Luke Challoner so successfully carried out, and for the future welfare of the new Institution, a site the most suitable and the most admirable that could have been found in Ireland was at that moment at the disposal of the Corporation of Dublin—the old Augustinian Monastery of All Hallows, lying to the eastward, and just outside the City. As far as we can gather from the recitals in the lease of the monastic buildings and site made by the Mayor and Sheriffs in the year 1591 to John Spensfield, the precincts, besides a church, consisted of “a steeple, a building with a vault under it, the spytor, otherwise called the hall, with appurtenances all along to the north cheek of the Bawn Gate.” We find that there were also within the precincts of the Monastery the sub-prior’s orchard and the common orchard, and a field called the Ashe Park, wherein the prior and the monks had their haggard and cistern, with the western storehouse by the Great Bawn, together with a vestry cloister, a little garden within the precincts, and a tower over the gate adjoining Hoggen Green. The buildings, without the lands, appear to have been let to John Pepard, merchant, for sixty-one years, at ten shillings a-year, with a clause restraining him from taking stones, or slates, or timber out of the precincts; the materials thereon were to be used only for building on the site. Another lease was made to Edward Pepard, in 1584, of a small orchard in All Hallows for thirty-one years, at twenty-four shillings a-year; and in 1583 Edward Pepard had sub-let, for twenty-one years, to Peter van Hey and Thomas Seele, a garden with a vault at the north side of All Hallows, at a yearly rent of forty shillings, with a covenant that they should keep up the garden wall and the vaults. It would thus appear that at this time the Pepards had acquired the site of the buildings and a small orchard, possibly that formerly occupied by the sub-prior, as tenants on a terminable lease. During the fifty years which elapsed from the suppression of the Monastery, the buildings must have suffered very considerable dilapidation. Most likely they had not been originally erected in a very substantial and durable manner; and as little care seems to have been taken as to the maintenance of the church, the hall, and the monastic dwellings, they must have been for the most part in a ruinous condition. The total value of the site and precincts is stated in a letter from Queen Elizabeth to have been £20 a-year. At the close of the Queen’s reign the City of Dublin did not extend towards the east beyond St. George’s Lane, now called South Great George’s Street. An open space of ground stretched from thence to All Hallows, with paths diverging to different parts of a small stream, beyond which lay the site of the old Monastery. The whole of the precincts at that time covered about twenty-eight acres, of which twelve were in meadow, nine in pasture, and seven in orchard. On the north, towards the river, there was a boggy strip of ground covered by the water at high tide, and bounded on the south by the path leading to St. Patrick’s Well, near the present entrance to Kildare Street, and bounded on the east by lands formerly belonging to the Abbey of the Blessed Virgin, but then in the tenure of John Dougan, on the site of the modern Westland Row.[139]
And such was the influence of the Archbishop, supported by his Archdeacon, Henry Ussher, and by Luke Chaloner, of Trinity College, Cambridge, and two Scotch schoolmasters, James Hamilton and James Fullerton, who were at the time in Dublin, that the Corporation convened the citizens to a general assembly at the Tholsel, where they, after due deliberation upon the proposal to grant the site of the monastery for the intended College, immediately proceeded to make the grant. A Charter of Incorporation had in the meantime been obtained from the Queen, on the petition of Henry Ussher. The letter of Elizabeth to Sir William Fitzwilliam, Lord Deputy, and to the Irish Council, announcing her consent to this arrangement, is dated December 21st, 1591; and, on the 3rd of the following March, Letters Patent passed the Great Seal.[140] The first stone of the new building was laid on March 13th, 1592. Subscriptions from the gentry in every part of Ireland were received for the building, and on January 9th, 1594, the new College was completed. No remains of this structure exist at the present day; indeed, no buildings prior to the reign of William III. are now to be found in Trinity College. The Elizabethan edifice consisted of a small square court, which was always familiarly called The Quadrangle, and which was removed early in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Some parts of the old monastery were no doubt utilised in the new building. As the visitor approached from Hoggen Green he crossed an outer enclosed court, which formed an entrance to the College; he then entered through the great gate, and found himself in a small square, probably on the site of the southern portion of the great main square of the College, then surrounded by buildings constructed of thin red Dutch brick, with probably a good deal of wooden framework inserted. On the north side lay the old steeple of the monastery, having the porter’s lodge on the ground floor, and a chamber over it; and on the second loft was hung the College bell. Towards the east of the steeple lay the Chapel; on the same side of the quadrangle was the Hall, paved with tiles, with a gallery, and a lantern in the roof. The hall was separated from the kitchen by a wooden partition, and in the same range with them was placed the Library. This room was over the scholars’ chambers, and had a gallery, and the lower part of it was fitted with ten pews for readers. The Regent House seems to have been between the Chapel and the Hall, and a gallery in the Regent House looked into the Chapel. This range of buildings extended to the east side of the court, beyond the site of the present Campanile. On the north of this range lay the kitchen, buttery chamber, and the storehouse. The east and west sides of the quadrangle contained students’ chambers, and on the south side were placed houses for the Fellows. The three sides composed in all seven buildings for residence—three on the south side, and two on each of the east and west sides. The upper story was lightened by dormer windows, with leaden lattices, and in the centre of the quadrangle stood the celebrated College pump.[141]
THE ELIZABETHAN COLLEGE.
For this interesting section as to the Elizabethan College, the writer is indebted to the Rev. J. W. Stubbs, D.D., S.F.T.C.D.:—
For a long period it was impossible to form an accurate idea of the size and arrangements of the buildings of the original College. The very foundations have long since been obliterated. Speed’s map gives a rough idea of its site and general shape; and Rocque’s map, which was constructed in 1751, before the structure was removed, shows its position with regard to the present Library and some of the portions of the College which remain. Dunton’s Life and Errors gives a description of the buildings as they stood one hundred years after their erection, yet his details are in some respects misleading.
In the present year, a paper in the handwriting of Sir William Temple, Provost in 1523, has been found, giving the distribution of the chambers in the College among the Fellows and students in that year, and which, with the aid of the preceding authorities and letters of the period, enables us to form a fairly accurate conception of the buildings as they existed in the time of James the First.
