Minster Court

Description

In AD 1027 King Canute granted the by then deserted nunnery and its lands to the Benedictine monks of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. They constructed the monastic grange, which operated as the main administrative centre for their large, mainly arable farmlands then covering most of Thanet. The grange survives in the form of standing buildings, water-filled fishponds and associated below ground remains. Lying towards the centre of the south western area of protection, the main grange buildings were arranged around a square, east-west aligned courtyard. The standing buildings are Listed Grade I and incorporate the northern hall range and attached western range, along with the ruined fragment of a square tower which adjoins the southern end of the western range. Faced with rubble ragstone and flint with ashlar dressings, the buildings have been dated by their architectural details to the 11th and 12th centuries. Original features include courses of herringbone walling and some Norman doorways and windows. The main accommodation in the north and west ranges was originally on the first floor over vaulted undercrofts. The attached tower was three-storeyed, and its massively thick walls indicate that it had an at least partly defensive purpose. A large-scale programme of alteration and renewal was carried out for Abbott Thomas Hunden in 1413, and the buildings underwent subsequent phases of alteration during the 17th, 19th and 20th centuries. (Scheduling Report)

The court-lodge, formerly a part of the nunnery, was, after the dissolution of it, made use of as a farmhouse, in which some of the monks of St. Augustine resided, to manage the estate of it, which they kept in their own hands. On the north side of it, which seems to have been the front or entrance, is a handsome stone portal, on the top of which, in the middle, within a circle, are the arms of the abbey of St. Augustine, viz. Sable, a cross, argent. At a small distance from it stood antiently a very large barn, sufficient to hold the corn growing on all the demesnes, being in length 352 feet, and in breadth 47 feet, and the height of the walls 12 feet, with a roof of chesnut. When the estate was divided, 154 feet in length of this building was carried to Sevenscore farm, where it was burnt, by an accident unknown in 1700, and the remaining part here was burnt by lightning afterwards. On the south side of the house stood a chapel, said to have been built by St. Eadburga, the third abbess here. In it the body of St. Mildred is said to have been placed by her, or rather translated from the other monastery. Some of the walls and foundations of this chapel were remaining within the memory of some not long since deceased, but it is now so entirely demolished, that there is nothing to be seen of it, excepting a small part of the tower, and of the stairs leading up into it. Just by these ruins of the tower is a small piece of ground, in which lately in digging for mould, several human bones were dug up. There is a view of the remains of this nunnery in Lewis's Thanet. (Hasted)

Comments

Renn gives no hint as to why he considers this to be a Norman castle, but presumably for similar reasons as to the statement in the scheduling report. The overlap between high status and 'military' architectural features in the Norman period was considerable and this tower a fine example. This was a manorial centre and of much greater status than most Granges suggesting the site had other functions, possibly as an Abbots palace.