PLAN OF HOLY TRINITY PRIORY (Ground Floor Story).
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PLAN OF HOLY TRINITY PRIORY (Second Floor Story).
A larger image is available [here].
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These are quite the most important (archæologically) of any of the illustrations in this book. Neither of them has been reproduced elsewhere. The originals are in the Marquess of Salisbury’s Hatfield House MSS., and the late Marquess gave permission for them to be used. They were sent to the British Museum for safety and were photographed there. It will be noticed that these plans show not only the disposition of the whole of the priory buildings, church, chapels, cloister, dormitory, etc., but also the ground plan of St. Katherine Cree, the position of the upper bastions of London Wall, and the direction of the lanes and streets thereabouts. They provide the basis for a wealth of discovery.
The second plan is labelled, “This second story or grownd Plat of Creechurch is drawn by J. Symans.” In it we see “Ivy Chamber” and close by the south transept let to “Darsey.” The upper floor of the Dorter, with “the gallery to the Dorter,” “a great Kitchen,” “a privy Kitchen,” and “The Great Tower,” which stood at the north-west corner of the nave, so as to be close to the entrance to “the body of the church,” by the west door, are all seen.
In both the plans the parish church appears where the present one is still, at the corner of Leadenhall Street and St. Mary Axe. This street is inscribed “A lane to London Wall from Allgat Streat”; and, after a turn past one of the smaller priory gates, “The waye from the monastary in to Allgat Streat.” The church fills a corner of the priory wall and is irregular in shape, with apparently a tower at the corner, under which is an entrance to the street. From the frequency of the window openings it would appear to have been in the Perpendicular style. It was in this building that the body of Hans Holbein, the artist, was buried at his death of the plague, while painting in Lord Audley’s house in November 1543. This church was ruinous in 1624. Two years earlier the parishioners nearer Aldgate built themselves a church, St. James’s, Duke’s Place, which stood very near, if not exactly on, the site of the Lady Chapel of the conventual church. It also fell out of repair and was pulled down in 1874, the parish being united with St. Katherine’s, which meanwhile, namely, in 1631, had been rebuilt by Archbishop Laud, and occupies the space shown by Symans, together with a narrow aisle taken from “the church yarde,” on the north side. This may perhaps be defined by a narrow passage shown in the ground plan along the wall of the church, and has hitherto been supposed to have formed part of the cloister. Churches, like this one for parishioners, occur in many other convents—St. Alban’s and Westminster Abbey, for instance.