Appendix D - James Essex's Observations on the Old Chapel of Sidney College in Cambridge

Summary

After a few introductory remarks about the history of the house the writer goes on as follows:

This building consisted of one room 69f 6in long 23f 6in wide between the walls and 25f high to the setting on of the roof, which formed a Cieling with arches principals and the intermediate spaces flat in the midle, and sloped on the sides, as represented in the section. There were three windows and a door on the west side: on the east there were the same number of windows and a door, with a Chimney (at a) seven feet wide, placed near the midle, on the west side nearly opposite the chimney (at b) two holes appear in the wall, which being too low for a Table or side board, and too high for a seat, might receive timbers to support the floor of a pulpit or desk, where the Lecturer read the Scriptures to the Friars while they were at meals: about ten feet from the south west angle near the side of the south door (at d) are some marks in the wall by which it appears that a Cistern or Laver had been fix'd there; under this, about a foot lower than the floor of the room, was a neat stone Drain, about one foot square in the form of figr A which runing obliquely in the direction d e, under the south end of the room, conveyed the water from this place into the Kings ditch and served likewise to convey other waste water from some part of the monastery, or from the Conduit belonging to it, which was served from the spring in the fields near Madingley road before it was given to Trinity College who cut off the pipe and retain'd the spring for their own use, when they sold the site of the Monastery.