http://boar.org.uk/abiwta5BourneAlmonry.htm Latest edit 29 Dec 2008

©R.J.PENHEY2008

Bourne Archive.

The Abbey Church, Bourne.

Photographic Evidence for the Site of the Abbey Almonry.

Among the detailed features of the Abbey Church building is a short blind arcade in the unexpected setting of the boiler room. The latter is a nineteenth century lean-to building against the western end of the north front of the medieval building. The westernmost of the arches is no more than a good pace from the public street, Church Walk. By the eighteenth century, this had become an adjunct of the adjacent big house, known as The Abbey and now usually referred to as Abbey House. However, in the twelfth century development scheme, it was the main road from Peterborough to Lincoln, with the abbey on one side and the outermost works of the castle on the other. Wayfarers were constantly passing and one of the features of Arrouaisian houses, of which Bourne Abbey was one, was that the canons ministered to the needs of wayfarers.

Though it seems never to have been completed as intended, the wall against which the boiler room leans was part of the stump of a tower with the stylistic features of the early to mid thirteenth century. On the west front and inside, these features are of a good quality workmanship and they extend into the boiler room wall in a simplified form. They are part of the north wall of the Abbey Church but at Bourne, the claustral buildings were on the north side. This has long been claimed but in 1985, the fact was demonstrated by an archaeological excavation. Unfortunately, that clashed with national political events so a full report was never published. The short run of blind arcade includes a low stone bench in each arch and gives an impression of being designed to provide simple seating – just off the road and just inside the canons’ premises, hard by the entrance to the nave, which was the parish church. It all combines to suggest the waiting place for the abbey’s almonry.

A picture of the benches appears in part 2.

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