Building record MLI70154 - Greyfriars, Lincoln

Summary

Greyfriars, Lincoln.

Type and Period (3)

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Full Description

(For the record on the friary as a whole, see PRN 70101) This building has been restored by the City Council and is in excellent condition. It is now used as a museum. The basement has a groined roof, supported on octagonal columns. The upper portion has a coved roof. Greyfriars is probably the chapel of the Franciscan priory, built about 1230 AD. {1}{2} The surviving Greyfriars building was built in about 1237, though includes the surviving undercroft of the Franciscan church, built about 1230. From the historical sources, and taking into account the friary's chronological pattern of development, this is the first stone church of the friary. It is the earliest of all surviving Franciscan churches in the country and a unique example of the very first type of simple rectangular Franciscan church dating from the first decade of their settlement and mission in England. D. Stocker argues, in an article of 1984, that the building was built as the friar's infirmary. The building was divided into an upper and lower hall in about 1270. It continued as part of the friary buildings although it is uncertain in what capacity, possibly it partly continued as the church. {3}{4}{5} The building was let to William Monson after the dissolution and it was converted into a private house. In 1568, a school was founded on the site. It became the Lincoln Museum in 1905. {6}{7} A watching brief was conducted in 1995-6, during groundworks on the northern and western side of Greyfriars, and clsoe to and abutting the west gable. Observations made failed to reveal deposits and features earlier than the early to mid 19th century. The presence of the ventilation wall along the northern part of the building had removed all evidence which may have established the relationships between those structures identified during the main 1994 excavation of the site and the Greyfriars building itself. The part of a medieval wall which was revealed and recorded could not, given the limited exposure, shed light on its relationship with Greyfriars. Similarly, with the results from observations made on the west side of the monument, the limited mipact of groundworks and the substantial amount of previous destruction to deposits, meant no previously unknown deposits or features apart from the newly exposed stonework associated with the removal of the abutting arch were recorded. {8}{9}

Sources/Archives (9)

  •  Scheduling Record: MINISTRY OF WORKS. MOW 819. -.
  •  Bibliographic Reference: Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris. 1964. Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (First Edition). pp.151-2.
  •  Article in Serial: Wilford, John. 1994. Lincoln Archaeology 1993-4. pp.38-41.
  •  Article in Serial: MARTIN A R. 1935. ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL. 61.92, pp.42-63.
  •  Scheduling Record: HBMC. 1988. AM 107. SAM 25.
  •  Report: City of Lincoln Archaeology Unit. 1996. Central Library, Lincoln: Archaeological Excavation and Assessment. GLB94.
  •  Archive: City of Lincoln Archaeology Unit. 1996. Lincoln Central Library Archaeological Evaluation. LCNCC 32.94.
  •  Report: City of Lincoln Archaeology Unit. 1996. Greyfrairs, Free School Lane, Lincoln: Archaeological Recording. GLC95.
  •  Archive: City of Lincoln Archaeology Unit. 1996. Greyfrairs, Free School Lane, Lincoln: Archaeological Recording. LCNCC 104.95.

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Location

Grid reference Centred SK 9775 7124 (42m by 16m)
Civil Parish ABBEY, LINCOLN, LINCOLNSHIRE

Related Monuments/Buildings (3)

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Record last edited

Aug 25 2021 10:38AM

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