London Charterhouse
Encyclopedia
Smithfield, London
Smithfield is an area of the City of London, in the ward of Farringdon Without. It is located in the north-west part of the City, and is mostly known for its centuries-old meat market, today the last surviving historical wholesale market in Central London...
dating back to the 14th century. It occupies land to the north of Charterhouse Square
Charterhouse Square
Charterhouse Square is a historic square in Smithfield, between Charterhouse Street and Clerkenwell Road. It lies in the extreme south of the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London....
. The Charterhouse began as (and takes its name from) a Carthusian
Carthusian
The Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns...
priory
Priory
A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters , or monasteries of monks or nuns .The Benedictines and their offshoots , the Premonstratensians, and the...
, founded in 1371 and dissolved in 1537. Substantial fragments remain from this monastic period, but the site was largely rebuilt after 1545 as a large courtyard house
Courtyard house
A courtyard house is a type of house — often a large house — where the main part of the building is disposed around a central courtyard. Many houses that have courtyards are not courtyard houses of the type covered by this article. For example, large houses often have small courtyards surrounded by...
. Thus, today it "conveys a vivid impression of the type of large rambling 16th century mansion that once existed all round London" (Pevsner: The Buildings of England). The Charterhouse was further altered and extended after 1611, when it became an almshouse
Almshouse
Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...
and school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
, endowed by Thomas Sutton
Thomas Sutton
Thomas Sutton was an English civil servant and businessman as well as being the founder of Charterhouse School. He was the son of an official of the city of Lincoln, and was educated at Eton College and probably at Cambridge...
. The almshouse (a home for gentlemen pensioners) still occupies the site today under the name Sutton's Hospital in Charterhouse.
Priory
In 1348, Walter de Manny rented 13 acre (0.05260918 km²) of land in Spital Croft, north of Long Lane, from the Master and Brethren of St. Bartholomew's Hospital for a graveyard and plague pit for victims of the Black DeathBlack Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
. A chapel and hermitage were constructed, renamed New Church Haw; but in 1371, this land was granted for the foundation of the London Charterhouse, a Carthusian
Carthusian
The Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns...
monastery.
The twenty-five monks each had their own small building and garden. Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
came to the monastery for spiritual recuperation. The name is derived as an Anglicisation of La Grande Chartreuse, whose order founded the monastery.
The monastery was closed in 1537, in the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
in the English Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
. As it resisted dissolution the monastery was treated harshly: the Prior
Prior
Prior is an ecclesiastical title, derived from the Latin adjective for 'earlier, first', with several notable uses.-Monastic superiors:A Prior is a monastic superior, usually lower in rank than an Abbot. In the Rule of St...
, John Houghton
Saint John Houghton
Saint John Houghton, O.Cart., was a Carthusian hermit and Catholic priest and the first English Catholic martyr to die as a result of the Act of Supremacy by King Henry VIII of England...
was hanged, drawn and quartered
Hanged, drawn and quartered
To be hanged, drawn and quartered was from 1351 a penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reigns of King Henry III and his successor, Edward I...
at Tyburn
Tyburn, London
Tyburn was a village in the county of Middlesex close to the current location of Marble Arch in present-day London. It took its name from the Tyburn or Teo Bourne 'boundary stream', a tributary of the River Thames which is now completely covered over between its source and its outfall into the...
and ten monks were taken to the nearby Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison
Newgate Prison was a prison in London, at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey just inside the City of London. It was originally located at the site of a gate in the Roman London Wall. The gate/prison was rebuilt in the 12th century, and demolished in 1777...
; nine of these men starved to death and the tenth was executed three years later at Tower Hill. They constitute the group known as the Carthusian Martyrs
Carthusian Martyrs
The Carthusian Martyrs were a group of monks of the London Charterhouse, the monastery of the Carthusian Order in central London, who were put to death by the English state from June 19, 1535 to September 20, 1537. The method of execution was hanging, disembowelling while still alive and then...
.
Tudor Mansion
For several years after the dissolution of the priory, members of the BassanoJeronimo Bassano
Jeronimo Bassano was an Italian musician who is noteworthy for having been head of a family of musicians — Anthony Bassano, Jacomo, Alvise, Jasper, John and Baptista — who moved from Venice to England and the household of Henry VIII to serve the court...
family of instrument makers were amongst the tenants of the former monks' cells, whilst Henry VIII stored hunting equipment in the church. But, in 1545, the entire site was bought by Sir Edward (later Lord) North
Edward North, 1st Baron North
Edward North, 1st Baron North was an English peer and politician. He was the Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire 1559–1564 and Clerk of the Parliaments...
(c. 1496-1564), who transformed the complex into a luxurious mansion house. North demolished the church and built the Great Hall and adjoining Great Chamber. In 1558, during North's occupancy, Queen Elizabeth I used the house during the preparations for her coronation
Coronation
A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...
.
Following North's death, the property was purchased by Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, KG, Earl Marshal was an English nobleman.Norfolk was the son of the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. He was taught as a child by John Foxe, the Protestant martyrologist, who remained a lifelong recipient of Norfolk's patronage...
, who renamed it Howard House. In 1570, following his imprisonment in the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
for scheming to marry Mary, Queen of Scots, Norfolk was placed under house arrest at the Charterhouse. He occupied his time by embellishing the house, and built a long terrace in the garden (which survives as the "Norfolk Cloister") leading to a tennis court. In 1571, Norfolk's involvement in the Ridolfi plot
Ridolfi plot
The Ridolfi plot was a plot in 1570 to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot was hatched and planned by Roberto di Ridolfi, an international banker who was able to travel between Brussels, Rome and Madrid to gather support without attracting...
was exposed after a ciphered letter from Mary, Queen of Scots was discovered under a doormat in the house; he was executed the following year.
The property passed to Norfolk's son, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk
Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk
Admiral Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, KG, PC was a son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk by his second wife Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk, the daughter and heiress of the 1st Baron Audley of Walden....
. During his occupancy, James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
held court there on his first entrance into London in 1603.
Almshouse and School
In May 1611 it came into those of Thomas SuttonThomas Sutton
Thomas Sutton was an English civil servant and businessman as well as being the founder of Charterhouse School. He was the son of an official of the city of Lincoln, and was educated at Eton College and probably at Cambridge...
(1532–1611) of Snaith
Snaith
Snaith is a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire local government area of England. It is situated approximately west of Goole on the A1041 road at its junction with the A645 road...
, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. He acquired a fortune by the discovery of coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
on two estates which he had leased near Newcastle-on-Tyne, and afterwards, removing to London, he carried on a commercial career. In the year of his death, which took place on the 12 December 1611, he endowed a hospital on the site of the Charterhouse, calling it the hospital of King James; and in his will he bequeathed moneys to maintain a chapel, hospital (almshouse
Almshouse
Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...
) and school. The will was hotly contested but upheld in court, and the foundation was finally constituted to afford a home for eighty male pensioners (gentlemen by descent and in poverty, soldiers that have borne arms by sea or land, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, or servants in household to the King or Queens Majesty), and to educate forty boys.
Charterhouse early established a reputation for excellence in hospital care and treatment, thanks in part to Henry Levett
Henry Levett
Dr. Henry Levett was an early English physician who wrote a pioneering tract on the treatment of smallpox and served as chief physician at London Charterhouse....
, M.D., an Oxford graduate who joined the school as physician in 1712. Levett was widely esteemed for his medical writings, including an early tract on the treatment of smallpox. Levett was buried in Charterhouse Chapel, and his widow remarried Andrew Tooke
Andrew Tooke
Andrew Tooke was an English scholar, headmaster of Charterhouse School, Gresham Professor of Geometry, Fellow of the Royal Society and translator of Tooke's Pantheon, a standard textbook for a century on Greek mythology.-Life:...
, the master of Charterhouse.
The school, Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...
, developed beyond the original intentions of its founder, and now ranks among the most eminent public schools in England. In 1872 it was removed, during the headmastership (1863–1897) of the Rev. William Haig-Brown (d. 1907), to new buildings near Godalming
Godalming
Godalming is a town and civil parish in the Waverley district of the county of Surrey, England, south of Guildford. It is built on the banks of the River Wey and is a prosperous part of the London commuter belt. Godalming shares a three-way twinning arrangement with the towns of Joigny in France...
in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, which were opened on the 18 June in that year. Since then, the Fourths (students in their first year) visit the Old Charterhouse (two classes per Quarter) as part of their introduction to the school.
Twentieth Century
The buildings were damaged in the BlitzThe Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
but were carefully restored during the 1950s so that some medieval and much 16th and 17th century fabric remains. Charterhouse School moved out in 1872, being replaced (till 1933) by the Merchant Taylors' School
Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood
Merchant Taylors' School is a British independent day school for boys, originally located in the City of London. Since 1933 it has been located at Sandy Lodge in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire ....
, but Charterhouse is still home to senior (male) citizens. The school buildings on the site of the former monastic cloister eventually became the home of the St Bartholomew's Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital, also known as Barts, is a hospital in Smithfield in the City of London, England.-Early history:It was founded in 1123 by Raherus or Rahere , a favourite courtier of King Henry I...
Medical School, and remain (though now much redeveloped) one of the sites of its successor, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. The main part of the cloister garth continues to be a pleasant lawn in the quadrangle of the university site.
The main function of the Charterhouse today, which has an annual income in excess of £3 million, is now as a home to 40 male pensioners, known as Brothers. The best known of recent residents was Simon Raven
Simon Raven
Simon Arthur Noël Raven was an English novelist, essayist, dramatist and raconteur who, in a writing career of forty years, caused controversy, amusement and offence...
, the novelist.
Charterhouse is a private residence, but is open for pre-booked guided tours (see website); and the chapel can be viewed as part of London Open House.
The nearest tube is Barbican but Farringdon
Farringdon station
Farringdon station is a London Underground and National Rail station in Clerkenwell, just north of the City of London in the London Borough of Islington...
tube and surface rail station is also close.
Local government
Charterhouse was traditionally considered an extra-parochial areaExtra-parochial area
In the United Kingdom, an extra-parochial area or extra-parochial place was an area considered to be outside any parish. They were therefore exempt from payment of any poor or church rate and usually tithe...
and formed a civil parish from 1858 to 1915. In 1900 it was incorporated into the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury
Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury
The Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury was a Metropolitan borough within the County of London from 1900 to 1965, when it was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of Islington to form the London Borough of Islington.- Boundaries :...
, and since 1965 has been part of the London Borough of Islington
London Borough of Islington
The London Borough of Islington is a London borough in Inner London. It was formed in 1965 by merging the former metropolitan boroughs of Islington and Finsbury. The borough contains two Westminster parliamentary constituencies, Islington North and Islington South & Finsbury...
.
Masters of Charterhouse
List of masters of Charterhouse since 1611. (incomplete)- 1611: John Hutton, M.A.,
- 1614. Andrew Perne, A.M.
- 1615. Peter Hooker, B.D.
- 1617. Francis Beaumont, Esquire, appointed by the King.
- 1624. Sir Robert DallingtonRobert DallingtonSir Robert Dallington was an English courtier, travel writer and translator, and master of the London Charterhouse.-Life:He was born at Geddington, Northamptonshire. He entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was there from about 1575 to 1580; from his incorporation at Oxford as M.A. it is...
, A. M. - 1637. George Garrard, M. A.
- 1650. Edward Cressett, Esquire.
- 1660. Sir Ralph SydenhamRalph SydenhamSir Ralph Sydenham was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1641 to 1642. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.Sydenham was the son of Sir John Sydenham of Brimpton...
- 1671. Martin Clifford, Esquire.
- 1677. William Erskine, Esquire.
- 1685. Thomas BurnetThomas BurnetThomas Burnet , theologian and writer on cosmogony.-Life:He was born at Croft near Darlington in 1635. After studying at Northallerton Grammar School under Thomas Smelt, he went to Clare Hall, Cambridge in 1651. There he was a pupil of John Tillotson...
, M. A. - 1715. John King, D.D.
- 1737. Nicholas MannNicholas Mann (antiquarian)Nicholas Mann was an English antiquary and Master of the Charterhouse.-Life:A native of Tewkesbury, he proceeded in 1699 from Eton College to King's College, Cambridge, of which he was elected fellow, and graduated B.A. in 1703, M.A. in 1707...
, Esquire. - 1753. Philip BearcroftPhilip Bearcroft-Life:He was descended from an ancient Worcestershire family, was born at Worcester on 1 May 1697.He was educated at the Charterhouse School, of which he was elected a scholar on the nomination of Lord Somers in July 1710....
, D.D. - 1761. Samuel Salter, D.D.
- 1778. William Ramsden, D.D.
- 1804. Philip Fisher, D.D.
- 1842. The Venerable Archdeacon HaleWilliam Hale HaleWilliam Hale Hale was an English churchman and author, Archdeacon of London in the Church of England, and Master of Charterhouse School.-Life:...
, M.A.
External links
- London Charterhouse website
- Notes on London Charterhouse
- Medical Old Carthusians
- Barrett, Charles Raymond Booth. Charterhouse, 1611-1895: in pen and ink (1895; Internet Archive)
See also
- CarthusianCarthusianThe Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns...
- CharterhouseCharterhouseA Charterhouse is a Carthusian monastery. The word is derived from Chartreuse, the first monastery of the order having been established in a valley of the Chartreuse Mountains.It can refer to numerous monasteries:It can also refer to:...