Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans: With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the AbbeyPerkins, Thomas, Rev.
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans: With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey
Perkins, Thomas, Rev.
St. Albans Cathedral
#Sopwell Nunnery.#--There are a few remains of Sopwell Nunnery in a
field near the river Ver, to the south-east of the city. They may be
reached by taking the first turning to the right hand after crossing the
bridge on the way from the city down Holywell Hill. This nunnery was
founded by Geoffrey of Gorham, sixteenth Abbot, about the middle of the
twelfth century. Two women, pious and ascetic, had taken up their abode
on this spot in a hut which they built for themselves, and Geoffrey
determined to build them a more permanent dwelling, and make them the
nucleus of a religious house. They accepted the Benedictine Rule, and
gradually the nunnery increased in size, and many ladies of high birth
took the veil here. One of the abbesses wrote the "Boke of St. Albans,"
not, as might be imagined, an account of the saint or of the religious
house, but a treatise on hawking, hunting, and fishing. It was printed
in 1483 at the St. Albans printing press. When the nunnery was
dissolved, Sir Richard Lee, to whom the Abbey lands were granted, turned
it into a dwelling-house for himself. The ruins consist of ivy-clad
walls of brick and flint, pierced by square-headed windows, but
containing few interesting features.
The name is said to have been derived from the fact that the two women
mentioned above soaked or sopped their dry bread in water drawn from the
Holy Well or some well in the immediate neighbourhood of their hut.
#St. Peter's Church.#--This church, standing at no great distance from
the cathedral, may be reached by taking the footway called the
Cloisters, crossing High Street, passing between the Clock Tower and the
picturesque and ancient inn, the Fleur de Lys, and through the quaint
street of gabled houses known as French Row, into St. Peter's Street.
The church was originally built about 948 A.D., by Ulsinus, the sixth
Abbot of St. Albans, but none of his work remains. It seems to have been
almost entirely rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century, and most of
it is Perpendicular in character. It has a central tower rebuilt about a
hundred years ago, and until that time had a transept. There is a
clerestory on either side of the nave. The chancel and the west end with
its circular window show signs of Lord Grimthorpe's style of
restoration. The tower contains a fine peal of ten bells. In the windows
of the south aisle is some richly coloured modern Belgian glass by
Capronnier; in the windows of the north aisle are some fragments of
fourteenth or fifteenth century glass, including the arms of Edmund, the
fifth son of Edward III., from whom in the male line Edward IV. was
descended, though he also traced his descent and his claim to the throne
from Lionel, the third son, through his daughter Philippa.
In the churchyard, which is of considerable extent, many of those who
fell in the two battles of St. Albans were buried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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