Crutched Friars

The Priory of the Friars of the Holy Cross from the Agas Map around 1550

None of city’s monasteries has been obliterated quite as comprehensively as that of the Friars of the Holy Cross which stood just a few yards north west of the Tower.

The adjacent street called ‘Crutched Friars’ reflects the rather crude anglicisation of their Latin name ‘Cruciferi’ – ‘Crossed Brethren’ (they sported simple crosses on their habits). Unlike other friars, they were not mendicants and earned income from their property holdings. A disparate grouping, with at least four families across Europe, they all followed the Augustinian rule.

Evidence suggests that the Belgian branch founded a small community of thirty friars on Hart Street in 1269. The site was initially rented from Holy Trinity Priory and All Hallows Barking.

The rector of St. Olave’s nearby at Hart Street was not happy having to accommodate a rival choice for burials. It was agreed that in return for the rector’s non-interference, the fees due from any St. Olave’s parishioners who chose to be interred in the monastic church would go to the parish.

Despite royal patronage the monastery struggled in those early days and in 1321 bailiffs confiscated bells as reparation following a legal dispute with All Hallows. By 1350 there were only thirteen friars. However, things picked up in the late fourteenth century with increased income from chantry masses enabling additional property to be purchased. Chapels were added to the church and the monastery was attracting more high-status burials. By 1455, the choir had been extended and a spire added to the central tower.

A disastrous fire in 1490 destroyed much of the precinct except the church. Sale of indulgences granting over three years remission from purgatory enabled rapid rebuilding.

In the early sixteenth century, charismatic prior William Bowry planned a further expansion with a large new choir extending the church to 240 feet (or by about 40%). Bowry had charmed some of the capital’s glitterati and bequests rose dramatically. A chapel was built to conduct special ‘scala coeli’ masses, a right granted by the Pope. Those participating and those prayed for received a guaranteed indulgence. Naturally these masses became very popular.

By the 1520s income was outstripping even the much larger Blackfriars priory. Nevertheless, such was the scale of Bowry’s ambitious plan that he appealed for more donations – his request to Henry VIII in 1535 apparently resulted in a contribution.

With at least twenty-six burials with funerary monuments, the relatively small interior must have been quite magnificent. In St. Peter Ad Vincula nearby at the Tower, is a possible example – Sir Richard Cholmeley’s tomb may well have been relocated from the priory at the dissolution.

Bowry’s choir, under construction in the sumptuous late medieval Tudor style was never completed. After closure, the church roof was removed and material recycled to repair the Lieutenant’s house at the Tower and the King Street Gate at Whitehall Palace. Most of the monastic precinct was bought by Cromwell’s protégé, the poet and diplomat Sir Thomas Wyatt for about £100.

Not long before the dissolution, a two winged ‘great mansion’ had been built by a private individual in the south of the precinct with over twenty rooms spread across two storeys plus cellar and garret and this was part of Wyatt’s acquisition. After seven years Wyatt sold the priory to Thomas Seymour – brother of Edward VI’s regent, the Duke of Somerset – and William Sharington. Jealous of his elder sibling, Seymour attempted a feeble bid for power (with fraudulent funds supplied by Sharington) and was executed on Tower Hill within sight of his house at Crutched Friars. Sharington got away with a fine plus the confiscation of his share of the priory.

The Earl of Arundel was given the property and he passed it to his daughter and son-in-law Baron Lumley. Lumley was one of the great connoisseurs of his day and had a magnificent collection of books, jewellery, furniture, sculpture and paintings, all still catalogued in the Lumley Inventories. He inherited the colossal, former royal palace at Nonsuch from the Arundels and established a major garden there. He passed ownership to Elizabeth I but stayed in residence as Keeper. After Lumley’s death, James I purchased all of his books which eventually became a basis for the British Library.

Sadly, there are no details of Lumley’s house at Crutched Friars but given his tastes it must have been quite luxurious and no doubt contained some of his fabulous furnishings. On Hart Street beyond St. Olave’s, there stood a large Tudor house, spuriously called Whittington’s Palace. Its three wings each had three tiers comprising glass lattice windows supported by corbels of wild beasts and goblins. Friezes above and below the tiers were emblazoned with shields. Demolished in 1801, it might be possible that Lumley’s house was equally splendid. He died at Crutched Friars in 1609 and was buried in his chapel at Cheam near Nonsuch.

To the north of Lumley’s house stood a hall dedicated to St. Barbara (patron saint of strangers), home of a lay fraternity of Dutch speaking artisans from across the city. Perhaps it was this association with the Dutch that attracted John Carré, an Antwerp glassmaker, to the site in 1570 where he established a ‘glass house’ – i.e. glass foundry. He had connections with glassmakers from the legendary island of Murano and after his death the foundry was taken over by the Venetian surgeon Giacomo Verzelini. Edward VI had first invited Muranese craftsmen to England in an effort to establish a home-grown, fine glass industry.

In 1575, a twenty-one-year patent was granted to Verzelini ‘for the making of drinking glasses such as be customarily made in the town of Murano.’ Exquisite examples of these vessels (‘Façon de Venise’) remain in various collections including the British Museum. A proviso of the patent was that English workers had to be taught the requisite skills.

The concentration of so many foreign artisans plus resentment at Verzelini’s monopoly of Venetian glass fomented racial tensions. Also, the furnace consumed some four hundred thousand billets of wood every year threatening already dwindling supplies. A major fire at the foundry broke out in September 1575 which halted production for some years. At the end of his monopoly Verzelini retired to rural Kent and is buried in Downe church.

The site of Crutched Friars was overtaken by warehouses and partly by Fenchurch St. Station. Devastated in the blitz it is currently buried beneath a nine-storey hotel which also boasts a sky lounge.