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An inspired condition of a National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, agreed around the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, was that the Charterhouse, whose origins date back to the Black Death of the 14th-century, should open its doors to the public.
This medieval monastery turned alms house, as a result offers a range of tours – by daylight, by candlelight, focused on the gardens, the paintings and the architecture. There is also a general one-hour overview – or “zip back and forth through the centuries,” as our guide, the excellent Myra, put it.
It begins with an introductory talk in the Lottery-funded Education Room before we soak up the atmosphere of the Great Hall, the Norfolk Cloister, the courtyards and the Great Chamber, and continue our education. We touch on extreme privilege and poverty, usury and benevolence, piety and politics and even the offside rule.
It all began with a burial ground when the knight Sir Walter Manny leased land to bury some of the roughly 60% of the population killed by Bubonic Plague and then paid for a chapel to be built to pray for their souls.
The next logical step was a Carthusian monastery, or Charterhouse – a corruption of “La Grande Chartreuse”, the head monastery of the Carthusian order, in the French Alps. The London Charterhouse, founded in 1371, was the idea of the then Bishop of London who had been impressed by a Carthusian monastery he had visited in Paris.
All was well for the silent order of monks until Henry VIII’s rift with the Roman Catholic church, the Act of Supremacy and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Carthusians whose conscience would not allow them to sign the Act, became the Carthusian Martyrs of London.
To deal with the confiscated Roman Catholic estates, Henry VIII created the Court of Augmentations, whose head Sir Edward North augmented his own wealth, becoming the new owner of The Charterhouse in 1545, which he set about transforming into London’s grandest Tudor Mansion.
Thomas Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk, subsequently bought the buildings in 1564 and rebuilt what is now called the Norfolk Cloister from the ruins of the monk’s original Great Cloister. It is there that the Charterhouse’s schoolboys, who came along later, are thought to have been responsible for the formulation of the offside rule.
Given the narrowness of even a Great Cloister, the rule reputedly arose to prevent one team hogging the opposite team’s goal in their version of soccer, known as “mobbing”.
Such animal spirits were diametrically opposed to the behaviour of the Carthusian monks, who, as Myra explains, tapping on the door of what would have been one of the cells in which they silently contemplated and prayed, only came together for religious services. Their meals were delivered to them through a hatch and eaten alone.
The boisterous schoolboys arrived after London’s grandest Tudor Mansion was acquired by the country’s richest commoner Thomas Sutton.
His money had flooded in from the coal mines of County Durham and as a result of the 1570 law that legalised usury and allowed him to lend at a rate of 10 percent. He was also Master of the Ordnance, a high-ranking officer responsible for the royal artillery and weapons.
Finding himself with no heir for his vast wealth, Sutton set up a charity in 1611 for the benefit of 80 poor men and 40 poor boys.
The 80 men were called Brothers and, according to Sutton’s will, were “either decrepit or old captaynes either at sea or at land, maimed or disabled soldiers, merchants fallen on hard times, those ruined by shipwreck or other calamity”.
At more than 50 years in age, they were considered old.
Today’s roughly 40 inhabitants of the Charterhouse alms houses are still called Brothers – or Lady Brothers for the women who have been admitted since 2017 – and they have to be aged more than 60, single and of limited means.
Unlike the monks, they also must be sociable and willing to partake of communal meals in the Great Hall.
Here Myra draws our attention to the great fireplace decorated with cannon and gunpowder barrels, an allusion to Sutton’s role as Master of Ordnance, and with the Sutton coat of arms that features the head of a greyhound. In honour of his achievements, the crest was created for Sutton after his death despite the fact he was not an aristocrat.
While the Brothers represent more than four centuries of continuity, the schoolboys moved out to Godalming in the 19th-century, where Charterhouse is now one of the country’s elite public schools, though, in acknowledgement of its charitable origins, it retains scholarship places. During its Clerkenwell times, its pupils included the future novelist Thackeray.
After more zipping back and forth through centuries and courtyards, Myra amazes us with the announcement she has received a telepathic message advising her we are sufficiently important, and we are led up to the Great Chamber, where Elizabeth I is believed to have met with her Privy Council.
The only great Tudor chamber to survive in London, it has been “refreshed and beautified”, partly with the help of Lottery money and partly through a renovation in the aftermath of severe damage caused by an incendiary bomb during the Blitz.
After we have marvelled at the ornate ceiling and smoked-damaged but still stunning fireplace, Myra, with admirable efficiency, brings her densely packed tour full circle by leading us to the tomb of Sir Walter Manny in Chapel Court.
He was reburied after being found in his lead coffin during archaeological investigations that took place during the post-War restoration.
Now he rests in peace, away from the bustle of modern-day London and the traumas of the past.
As you ponder the prevailing calm, you might find yourself wanting to be a present-day Brother or at the very least to return for one of the Charterhouse’s other tours.
The Charterhouse, London,
Guided tours.
An inspired condition of a National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, agreed around the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, was that the Charterhouse, whose origins date back to the Black Death of the 14th-century, should open its doors to the public.
This medieval monastery turned alms house, as a result offers a range of tours – by daylight, by candlelight, focused on the gardens, the paintings and the architecture. There is also a general one-hour overview – or “zip back and forth through the centuries,” as our guide, the excellent Myra, put it.
It begins with an introductory talk in the Lottery-funded Education Room before we soak up the atmosphere of the Great Hall, the Norfolk Cloister, the courtyards and the Great Chamber, and continue our education. We touch on extreme privilege and poverty, usury and benevolence, piety and politics and even the offside rule.
It all began with a burial ground when the knight Sir Walter Manny leased land to bury some of the roughly 60% of the population killed by Bubonic Plague and then paid for a chapel to be built to pray for their souls.
The next logical step was a Carthusian monastery, or Charterhouse – a corruption of “La Grande Chartreuse”, the head monastery of the Carthusian order, in the French Alps. The London Charterhouse, founded in 1371, was the idea of the then Bishop of London who had been impressed by a Carthusian monastery he had visited in Paris.
All was well for the silent order of monks until Henry VIII’s rift with the Roman Catholic church, the Act of Supremacy and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Carthusians whose conscience would not allow them to sign the Act, became the Carthusian Martyrs of London.
To deal with the confiscated Roman Catholic estates, Henry VIII created the Court of Augmentations, whose head Sir Edward North augmented his own wealth, becoming the new owner of The Charterhouse in 1545, which he set about transforming into London’s grandest Tudor Mansion.
Thomas Howard, the fourth Duke of Norfolk, subsequently bought the buildings in 1564 and rebuilt what is now called the Norfolk Cloister from the ruins of the monk’s original Great Cloister. It is there that the Charterhouse’s schoolboys, who came along later, are thought to have been responsible for the formulation of the offside rule.
Given the narrowness of even a Great Cloister, the rule reputedly arose to prevent one team hogging the opposite team’s goal in their version of soccer, known as “mobbing”.
Such animal spirits were diametrically opposed to the behaviour of the Carthusian monks, who, as Myra explains, tapping on the door of what would have been one of the cells in which they silently contemplated and prayed, only came together for religious services. Their meals were delivered to them through a hatch and eaten alone.
The boisterous schoolboys arrived after London’s grandest Tudor Mansion was acquired by the country’s richest commoner Thomas Sutton.
His money had flooded in from the coal mines of County Durham and as a result of the 1570 law that legalised usury and allowed him to lend at a rate of 10 percent. He was also Master of the Ordnance, a high-ranking officer responsible for the royal artillery and weapons.
Finding himself with no heir for his vast wealth, Sutton set up a charity in 1611 for the benefit of 80 poor men and 40 poor boys.
The 80 men were called Brothers and, according to Sutton’s will, were “either decrepit or old captaynes either at sea or at land, maimed or disabled soldiers, merchants fallen on hard times, those ruined by shipwreck or other calamity”.
At more than 50 years in age, they were considered old.
Today’s roughly 40 inhabitants of the Charterhouse alms houses are still called Brothers – or Lady Brothers for the women who have been admitted since 2017 – and they have to be aged more than 60, single and of limited means.
Unlike the monks, they also must be sociable and willing to partake of communal meals in the Great Hall.
Here Myra draws our attention to the great fireplace decorated with cannon and gunpowder barrels, an allusion to Sutton’s role as Master of Ordnance, and with the Sutton coat of arms that features the head of a greyhound. In honour of his achievements, the crest was created for Sutton after his death despite the fact he was not an aristocrat.
While the Brothers represent more than four centuries of continuity, the schoolboys moved out to Godalming in the 19th-century, where Charterhouse is now one of the country’s elite public schools, though, in acknowledgement of its charitable origins, it retains scholarship places. During its Clerkenwell times, its pupils included the future novelist Thackeray.
After more zipping back and forth through centuries and courtyards, Myra amazes us with the announcement she has received a telepathic message advising her we are sufficiently important, and we are led up to the Great Chamber, where Elizabeth I is believed to have met with her Privy Council.
The only great Tudor chamber to survive in London, it has been “refreshed and beautified”, partly with the help of Lottery money and partly through a renovation in the aftermath of severe damage caused by an incendiary bomb during the Blitz.
After we have marvelled at the ornate ceiling and smoked-damaged but still stunning fireplace, Myra, with admirable efficiency, brings her densely packed tour full circle by leading us to the tomb of Sir Walter Manny in Chapel Court.
He was reburied after being found in his lead coffin during archaeological investigations that took place during the post-War restoration.
Now he rests in peace, away from the bustle of modern-day London and the traumas of the past.
As you ponder the prevailing calm, you might find yourself wanting to be a present-day Brother or at the very least to return for one of the Charterhouse’s other tours.
Barbara Lewis © 2025.
By Barbara Lewis • architecture, history, society, year 2025 • Tags: architecture, Barbara Lewis, history, society