http://boar.org.uk/abiwtafBourneAlmonry.htm Latest edit 27 Jul 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.

The easternmost of the blind arches has been widened, particularly at its head, so as to provide a doorway of useable size. While the rest of the wall is of limestone, the rough vault of the arch in the thick tower wall, is of brick. It is not easy to be sure of its age since it is thickly painted but it looks like eighteenth century work. It was perhaps intended as an entrance to the parish church for the household of the lord of the manor of Bourne Abbots, who lived in the adjacent Abbey House.

Figure 3. The eighteenth century adaptation of the easternmost arch to make a doorway through the tower wall. That opening was in turn, blocked in the nineteenth century.

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