The confusing years

 There is a short period in the history of the Charterhouse which has confused everyone who has researched it.  That period covers the years 1539 to 1553.

On 9 November 1539 the Carthusian Priory next door to the almshouse was closed.  The closure came late in the countrywide dissolution of religious houses, probably because it was relatively poor.  The Prior, Ralph Mauleverer, and his 6 remaining monks were given their pensions and sent on their way.  The lands which the de la Pole family had bestowed on the Priory reverted to the Crown.  The rest of the de la Pole lands in the manor of Myton had been under the lordship of Sir William Sidney since 1514.  So much is more or less clear.  But how did this affect the almshouse which later took on the name of the priory, the Charterhouse?

A timeline is useful:

• 1503/4 Edmund de la Pole attainted and his lands seized by the Crown
• 1514 Sir William Sidney granted the lordship of the manor of Myton
• 1535 William Mann becomes Master of the Charterhouse
• 1539 Priory dissolved
• 1547 Death of King Henry VIII
• 1548 Act seizing for the Crown all religious foundations which paid priests to say mass in perpetuity
• 1551 or 1552 Simon Kemsey becomes Master of the Charterhouse
• 1552 King Edward VI granted lordship of the manor of Myton to the town of Hull
• 1552 Edward VI succeeded by Queen Mary I
• 1553 Charter of Mary I confirms Edward's grants

Some early historians believed that when the Priory was closed in 1539 the almshouse was also closed.  John Cook, in his The History of God's House of Hull of 1882, argued against that.  He cites a certificate which, he says, was probably produced for the Commissioners under the 1548 Act and which gives details of the hospital. It was founded for 13 men and 13 women, but at that point had only 6 inmates. Although it was in a decayed state, it had not been dissolved and did not need to be re-founded.  The dissolution of the Priory would have meant that the Mayor and Aldermen were the last backstop of authority under the founding charter.  They seem to have done nothing to promote the almshouse's interests.  Or was it the case that there had been no income in this period from the lands which had (or had not) been confiscated?  However, the Mayor and Aldermen would have appointed the new Master, Simon Kemsey, in 1551 or 1552 (sources vary).  It was a curious appointment.  Kemsey had been the bailiff of the Yorkshire lands of Sir William Sidney, and in 1555 he was to become Hull's Town Clerk. In his brief four-year period as Master Kemsey is thought to have built himself a house, perhaps the first Master's house. The Bench Books record, in October 1555, that the Mayor and Burgesses granted Kemsey and his heirs in fee farm (a form of rent) “the capital mansion house and garden of the hospital near unto Hull” with various lands. But a number of documents from September and October 1556 show that he was persuaded to hand it over to his successor, Laurence Allen for £20. He was bound in the sum of 200 marks “to abide by the award of the Mayor and others as to the mastership” and a feoffment was issued in the consideration of £20 with a letter of attorney to deliver the property to Allen.

In 1552 the young King Edward VI granted the lordship of the manor of Myton to the town, along with part of the dissolved monastery.  Edward died in July of the same year and his successor, his half-sister Mary, granted a charter in December 1553 which confirmed those grants.

1553 Charter of Mary I, in the collection of the Hull History Centre

From then on the position was clear.  The lands which provided the income for the almshouse were secure and the Mayor and Aldermen were in charge.  It wasn't to be plain sailing - but that's another story.

The Master's House

 On the other side of the road from the main building of the Charterhouse stands the Master's House.

A visitor might see it as rather odd.  The architecture is different from that of the building it faces; it looks to be in an older style.  But it doesn't look old.  Yet the blue plaque tells you that Andrew Marvell lived part of his childhood here.  So when was it built?

The first map which shows the buildings of the hospital and Priory was drawn by Hollar in 1640.  These are the original 14th century structures.  The Priory in the bottom corner has been converted into a private house for the Alured family.  The hospital, or almshouse, buildings at the top did have had a house set aside for the Master; it is referred to in 1556 when Simon Kemsey handed over the Mastership to Laurence Allen.  But it is clearly not the house we have now.  And it was in that house which Andrew Marvell would have lived from 1624 when his father came here as Master.  Two years after Hollar drew the map all the buildings pictured were demolished to make way for a gun battery in preparation for the Civil War.  Rebuilding started in 1649 and a second phase in 1673 added a chapel.  It is most likely that the Master's House we know today dates from that period.  The style fits.

There is a sketch which appears in John Cook's history of the Charterhouse from 1882 which confuses matters.

It is titled The South Prospect, and was drawn in 1724; but where was the artist standing?  South of the whole site meant he (or she) was looking at the rear of the Master's house, but that doesn't look right.  So was this the view of the hospital building done with the artist's back to the Master's house?  That seems most likely.

An aerial view of the House gives an idea of its size.

This is not two separate buildings, one behind the other.  They are part of the same structure, with the rear part forming an extensive west wing.  This probably contained the servants' quarters and some utilities.  The garden is huge by any standards.  Clearly one of the perks of being Master, and the reason for the job being so sought after, was to have such a grand residence.  If he had more than one source of income, a large family and servants, it was ideal.  For a single man dependent on his salary as Master, it was far too big.  

Originally there was a coach house and stables, perhaps where the garage is now.  A great deal of information about the house comes from a 1768 inventory drawn up by a Notary Public when the house was temporarily empty.  I looked at this "Inventory of Areloms" in detail in an earlier post.   It tells us that there was a well-equipped brew-house, almost certainly in the west wing.  There is also mention of a chapel within the house as well as a cellar.

The house was not touched when the hospital itself was demolished and rebuilt in 1780.  Over the years a great deal of money had to be spent to maintain it, but it survived - until May 1941, when a bomb caused considerable damage.  (The Master, Arthur Chignell was in his shelter in the garden at the time and was unscathed.)  The process of evacuating the Charterhouse began.  Chignell tried a for a little while to live in the undamaged part of the house, but eventually had to move out, and all the buildings were left unprotected.  Rapid deterioration was inevitable.  By the end of the war the house was a ruin.

While the Charterhouse was rapidly restored and re-opened in 1948, the house became the subject of heated debate.  There were those who felt that the only sensible thing to do was to demolish it completely and build a modern house in its place.  Others wanted to replace it with more accommodation for residents, with the Master going to live elsewhere.  Many wanted it to be restored to its former glory.

The arguments came up against a new factor.  So many ancient buildings had been damaged during the war that there were moves to give them legal protection.  This culminated in the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 which introduced the listing system.  The Charterhouse itself was quickly listed; but what about the Master's House?  The debate was only settled when it became clear that the only funds available would be via the War Damage Commission, established in 1941, and that would be for restoration to its original condition.  The work to do so only got under way in the mid-1950s.

Plans for its reconstruction were drawn up.  Here is the north elevation.  A decision was made to convert the west wing into accommodation for residents.  The result of this was not successful.

The reconstruction work used as much material from the old building as could be salvaged.  But the result was, inevitably, that it looked rather too new.  

When a major renovation and rebuilding project was under-taken on the Charterhouse in 1978 an attempt was made at a better conversion of the west wing of the house.  The interior was shaped into four flats; but one of them had no kitchen, and, until the 1990s, there was only a curtain between the upstairs flats and the Master's domain.  The wing was given a new name - Chignell House, in honour of the Master between 1919 and 1951.

In 2017, during an interval between Masters, more extensive work was needed on the house, to deal with damp and to remove partition walls which had not been part of the original.  The result is a spacious house fit for a modern Master of the Charterhouse.