Building record 727/16/1 - No.88 Watling Street East (The Chantry House, Attached Forecourt Walls & Gateway)

House, with considerable 18th and 19th century alterations. Built as a house for two priests serving Archdeacon Sponne's chantry. Suppressed at the reformation. Bought back at 1552 by the trustees of Sponne's charity for use as a grammer school. Served as school and master's house until 1866. Then it became a house. Coursed squared ironstone and limestone, slate roof, stone end stacks. 2-unit through-passage plan. 2-storey, 4-window range.

{1} House. C15 with considerable C18 and C19 alterations. Coursed squared ironstone and limestone, slate roof, stone end stacks. 2-unit through-passage plan. 2-storey, 4-window range. C19 studded plank door to left of centre in moulded wood surround and late C18 pedimented wood doorcase. The door is recessed in front with remains of original jettied timber-framed first floor above. 3-light C19 wood mullion and transom windows to ground floor with stop-chamfered lintels. Projecting tower to left end, originally a stair-turret, with moulded stone coping. 3- and 2- light C19 casement windows to first floor with stop-chamfered lintels. Stone-coped gables with kneelers. Attached forecourt walls of coursed squared ironstone and limestone with ridged ironstone coping. C15 gateway to middle of front wall has chamfered jambs and many-moulded arch with 4-centred head. The wall is stepped up above gateway. Interior: 2-bay ground floor hall has moulded cross-beam ceiling and Tudor-arched stone fireplace with chamfered jambs and many-moulded head. Stone relief incorporated in wall probably C17 with allegorical figure of Victory blowing a trumpet. Built as a house for the two priests serving Archdeacon Sponne's chantry (q.v. Church of St. Lawrence), suppressed at the Reformation. Bought back in 1552 by the trustees of Sponne's Charity for use as a grammer school. Served as school and master's house until 1866, when it became a house. (Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.435; A Towcester Trail (leaflet), 1983, published by The Towcester Local History Society).

{2} House, with considerable 18th and 19th century alterations. 2-unit through-passage plan. 2-storey, 4-window range.Built as a house for two priests serving Archdeacon Sponne's chantry. Suppressed at the reformation. Bought back at 1552 by the trustees of Sponne's charity for use as a grammer school. Served as school and master's house until 1866. Then it became a house.

{4} The chantry house was timber-framed between stone end walls, and contained a ground floor hall, offices and kitchen, with chambers above. In front was a small courtyard surrounded by a wall. According to the Victoria County History the chantry house was sold and completely demolished, with the exception of one wall and a doorway. The stones were used in a new building erected on an adjacent site. The full description of the Chantry House formerly the Grammar School given in P. Riden’s new book does not square with this statement.

{5} Built in 1448 on Market Square, but was extensively rebuilt in 19th century and turned into a town house. The building is now in use as 'St Lawrence Church Parish Office'. Film 4, photo 4.

Description from record 727/16:
{1} A map of Sponne’s Charity Estate made in 1820 depicted the School House and garden on the north side of Church Lane stretching from Moat Lane to Watling Street. This was presumably on the site of one of the two messuages acquired when the chantry was established. One was described as lying ‘at the corner opposite the gate of the rectory, between a tenement sometime of Master Sponne on the north and the lane extending towards the mill of the lord on the south, and between Watling Street on the west and the gate of Towcester manor on the east’.
In 1548 the annual salary was £7 6s 8d, and the schoolmaster was described as well-learned and said to teach daily and freely. The commissioners found that the school had been continually kept, and that it was ‘very mete and necessary to continue’. Payments to the schoolmaster can be traced into the C17th. In 1552 the feoffees of the Tabard charity, which had also been established by Sponne’s executors in accordance with his will, acquired the chantry house and cottage with which Sponne’s chantry had been endowed. They used the chantry house as a school, and from that date they nominated and appointed the schoolmaster. However, an entry in the accounts of the Collectors of the Tabard rents for the year 1483-4 suggests that the Tabard feoffees already had some responsibility for the school. In that year ‘Master Christopher’ had been paid 6s 8d ‘to make the scole house’.

{7} Undated photo;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 13/159 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), F08 p.74 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN45262.

<3> Pevsner N.; Cherry B., 1973, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.435 (unchecked) (Series). SNN1320.

<4> Taylor J.; Foard G.; Laughton J.; Steadman S.; Ballinger J., 2002, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Towcester, 3.4.3 (checked) (Report). SNN103132.

<5> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Towcester (Industrial), 3.9 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN100255.

<6> Paxton Brown, 2012, The Chantry House, 88 Watling Street, Towcester, (unchecked) (Report). SNN108535.

<7> Photographs of buildings in Towcester (Photographs). SNN114425.

Record last edited

Jan 18 2023 11:53AM