Notes on some Recent Excavations at Westminster Abbey

Extract

Until the publication in 1911 of The Abbot's House at Westminster by Dr. Armitage Robinson, it had been assumed by all previous investigators of the monastic buildings at Westminster that the Misericorde stbod upon the site of what is now Ashburnham House. From documentary evidence Dr. Robinson was led to the conclusions that this site was actually that of the Prior's House, and that the Misericorde lay either in an angle south-west of the Frater and contiguous with it, or in a loft at its west end as at Durham. He inclined strongly, however, to the former hypothesis, influenced by the remains of two vaulting-shafts on either side and south of a hatch communicating with the Frater. One further conclusion was that the Misericorde was upstairs. ‘If there was a vaulted chamber under the Misericorde which formed part of a passage to the kitchen, all the facts fit in well together.’ It may be remarked that further documentary evidence has served only to confirm Dr. Robinson's view, but until recently no attempt has been made at any serious investigation of the site, though the late Clerk of the Works, Mr. Thomas Wright, sen., left some valuable notes of observations made by him on the occasion of the laying of a drain.