and occupied about two-thirds of the space between the High Street on the west, the church on the south, and the north-eastern boundary of the precinct. A group of houses stood between it and the great gate towards Ludgate, and three others separated it from the High Street at the south west corner.[1] One of these, built up against the church and the High Street gateway, was a recluse's cell or Ankerhouse.[2] Cawarden cut a new road across the churchyard, 20 ft. north of the site of the chancel and just north of the Ankerhouse and the High Street gate. This continued Carter Lane, the turn-*gate at the end of which was converted into a gate practicable for carts, and with Bridewell Lane provided a thoroughfare across the Blackfriars from east to west in addition to that from north to south. That part of the existing Carter Lane, west of Creed Lane, which was formerly known as Shoemakers' Row, doubtless represents Cawarden's new way.[3]
On the south of the nave stood the great cloister, entered by a porter's lodge in its north-west corner. It was 110 ft. square. Its eastern alley was probably in a line with a way across the church under the belfry to a door into the church-*yard, and this line, preserved by Cawarden in order to provide access to the cloister from his new way, is represented by the existing Church Entry.[4] The north side of the cloister was formed by the wall of the nave. Behind the other three sides were ranged the domestic buildings of the convent. On the east were the ample Prior's lodging, which stretched back over the space south of the chancel, and farther to the south the Convent garden, covering an acre. Over part of this lodging and over the cloister alley itself was the east dorter of the friars, communicating direct with the church by a stairway.[5] The east side of the cloister also contained the Chapter-house, which probably stood in the middle, and to the south of this a school-house.[6] Behind the south-*east corner were the provincial's lodging, a store-house, the common jakes, and another garden, known as the hill garden.[7]
- ↑ M. S. C. ii. 9, 107, 114; Clapham, 62; London Inquisitiones Post Mortem, ii. 115.
- ↑ Ibid. 9, 10, 112.
- ↑ Ibid. 111, 113.
- ↑ Ibid. 110; Clapham, 63.
- ↑ Ibid. 10, 110, 114.
- ↑ Ibid. 3.
- ↑ Some vaulted fragments stood until 1900 at a spot which must have been just east of the school-house. Possibly they formed part of the provincial's lodging. They are shown in a plan of c. 1670-80 (Clapham, 71), and their condition in 1900 was carefully recorded (Clapham, 69, 70, 78). Only a fragment of wall is now in situ, just north of what is now the west end of Ireland Yard, but appears on the seventeenth-century plan as Cloister Court. It must, however, have run out from the south-*east corner of the cloister towards the east. The name Cloister Court has now passed to a yard farther south.
