At The Charterhouse

Brick buildings of 1531 in Preacher’s Court with the Barbican beyond

Desirous of a second visit to view the magnificence of the Charterhouse more closely, I made another call upon my new friend Brother Hilary Haydon one sunny afternoon last week, using the excuse of undertaking a photoessay, and these pictures – interspersed with lantern slides from the Bishopsgate Institute of the same subject a century ago – are the result.

Hilary is also enamoured by the atmosphere of repose conjured by the ancient buildings and lush gardens at the Charterhouse. “I must say, it is very pleasant to relax here and leave those fellows over in the City doing all that stressful hard work,” he confessed to me, now happily retired and enjoying the peace and quiet, after a long career as a Barrister in the Square Mile.

Carved details of the Gatehouse and the Physician’s House, 1716

Gateway of c1400 with Physician’s House built above in 1716

Cloisters in Preacher’s Court

The Preacher’s House built in the eighteen-twenties

Old pump in Preacher’s Court

Tudor chimneys in Preacher’s Court

The Great Staircase, erected in early seventeenth century and destroyed in 1941

Wash House Court

Passageway into Wash House Court

Master’s Court built in 1546

Great Hall built by Thomas Howard in 1571 while under house arrest here for plotting with Mary Queen of Scots to depose Elizabeth I

Portrait of Thomas Sutton in the Great Hall with Thomas Fenner below

Portrait of Elizabeth Salter attributed to Hogarth in the Great Hall

Chapel Cloister

Chapel Cloister

Tomb of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse

Thomas Sutton

The  fifteenth century South Aisle of the Chapel

Brother Hilary Haydon in the North Aisle of the Chapel, added in 1614

Names of Charterhouse schoolboys etched upon the glass in the nineteenth century

Tudor brickwork upon the exterior of Wash House Court

Physician’s House built in 1716

Entrance to the Charterhouse viewed through the former Priory Gate

Knocker upon the main gate

Archive images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute

Tours of the Charterhouse are available by clicking here

You may also like to read about

Hilary Haydon, Brother at the Charterhouse