London Charterhouse

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The London Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery in London, England, to the north of what is now Charterhouse Square. The building is formally known as Sutton's Hospital in Charterhouse, and is a registered charity. Since the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century the house has served as private mansion, a boys' school and an almshouse.

Contents 1 History 2 Dissolution 3 Post dissolution history 4 Modern history 5 Visitor information 6 Local government 7 References 8 External links 9 See also

[edit] History

The Charterhouse was founded in 1371 by Walter de Manny, in Smithfield to the north west of the City of London. It was set up near a 1348 plague pit where many victims of the Black Death were buried. The twenty-five monks each had their own small building and garden. Thomas More came to the monastery for spiritual recuperation. The name is derived as an Anglicisation of La Grande Chartreuse, whose order founded the monastery^[1].

[edit] Dissolution

The monastery was closed in 1537, in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the English Reformation. As it resisted dissolution the monastery was treated harshly: the Prior, John Houghton was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn and ten monks were taken to the nearby Newgate Prison; 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.

[edit] Post dissolution history

The site was subsequently used by Lord North and the Duke of Norfolk as a home. In 1558, while in the possession of Lord North, it was occupied by Queen Elizabeth I during the preparations for her coronation. Ricardo Ridolfi was arrested in the House and the Ridolfi plot of 1571 failed and was followed by the execution of Norfolk June 2 1572. During this period the Bassano family of musicians, originally from Venice, also had some involvement with the house.

James I held court here on his first entrance into London in 1603. The Charterhouse was then in the hands of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk (son of the executed Duke of Norfolk), but in May 1611 it came into those of Thomas Sutton (1532-1611) of Snaith, Lincolnshire. He acquired a fortune by the discovery of coal 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) 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. The school, Charterhouse School, 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 in Surrey, 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.

[edit] Modern history

The buildings were damaged in the Blitz but are now restored and some medieval and 16th Century fabric remains. Charterhouse School moved out in 1872, being replaced (till 1933) by the Merchant Taylors' School, but Charterhouse is still home to senior (male) citizens. The pensioners still occupy their home. The school buildings on the site of the former monastic cloister eventually became the home of the St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, and remain (though now much redeveloped) one of the sites of its successor, Barts and The London, Queen Mary's 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, 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, the novelist.

[edit] Visitor information

The Charterhouse itself may be visited by guided tour only (The Tour Information Line is 020 7251 5002). The tour, usually delivered by one of the elderly gentlemen residents, has been found interesting and pleasing by many visitors. The southern side of the outside is open to view from Charterhouse Square, which is publicly accessible. The university site is not open to visitors but may be glimpsed from the gates in the NE corner of Charterhouse Square or seen from the Charterhouse tour if it reaches the terrace on top of the former tennis court walkway along the side of the old cloister: this overlooks the entire quadrangle.

The nearest tube is Barbican but Farringdon tube and surface rail station is also close.

[edit] Local government

Charterhouse was traditionally considered an extra-parochial area and eventually became a separate civil parish in its own right. In 1899 it was incorporated into the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury, and since 1965 has been part of the London Borough of Islington.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Aerial photo of London Charterhouse. Other map and aerial photo sources.

[edit] See also

• Carthusian
• Charterhouse

Coordinates: 51°31′17″N, 0°05′59″W