Last week, I showed you pictures of one of my most coveted books – Philip Morant’s

“The History and Antiquities of the Most Ancient Town and Borough of Colchester in the County of Essex, in Three Books. Collected Chiefly from Manuscripts. With an Appendix of Records and Original Papers.”

Morant was arguably the most important chronicler of Essex.  Writing in the eighteenth century, his books give us, the, modern reader, a unique peak into Essex as it looked nearly three hundred years ago.

His first book about the town of Colchester was published in 1748.

 

Next is the plate showing the north prospect of the town – as it was in 1748. I suspect that those fields in the foreground of the engraving are now long gone?

 

Below is Morant’s plate showing St John’s Abbey Gate – as it was in 1748.  Today in the care of English Heritage and Colchester Borough Council, the Gate is an important part of the town’s heritage.

This quote about it is directly taken from English Heritage’s website…

“This elaborate 15th-century gatehouse is all that remains standing of the Benedictine abbey of St John the Baptist that stood outside the walled town of Colchester. The extent of the abbey is still defined by the much-repaired precinct wall, and the gatehouse stands at the centre of the northern boundary.”

“The abbey was founded in 1095 by Eudo Dapifer, William the Conqueror’s High Steward and Constable of Colchester Castle. From its inception the abbey made a major contribution to the development of medieval Colchester and became a wealthy and privileged house, despite losing part of its buildings to fire in 1133.”

“In the late 14th and early 15th centuries, perhaps as a result of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the abbey strengthened its defences and the gatehouse was added as part of this revamping around 1400.”

“St John’s was one of a handful of abbeys that refused to surrender to Henry VIII’s Commissioners during the Suppression, succumbing only after the execution of the abbot for treason.”

“The property was eventually acquired by the Lucas family who converted some of the abbey buildings into a house. It remained their family seat until the mid-17th century, but it suffered considerable damage as a Royalist stronghold during the siege of Colchester in 1648. The gatehouse itself was stormed by Parliamentary troops and their artillery damaged the vaulted roof and destroyed part of the upper storey.”

“The site was used to house Dutch prisoners in the 1660s, after which the remaining abbey buildings appear to have been demolished; there are no references to occupation after the mid-18th century.”

By the time of Philip Morant’s work, only the Gate of this once great abbey remained (as above). So, Morant included another engraving – depicting the abbey’s church as it was back in the 1500s – before Henry VIII dissolved it and the abbey’s abbot was executed for high treason for rebelling against the king.

The engraving in Morant’s book was based on a much earlier sixteenth century drawing. A drawing that was then (in the 1740s) in the “Cotton Library” (see the text at the bottom of the plate).

From Wikipedia, this is the description of the Cotton Library:-

“The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts once owned by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631), an antiquarian and bibliophile. It later became the basis of what is now the British Library, which still holds the collection. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, many priceless and ancient manuscripts that had belonged to the monastic libraries began to be disseminated among various owners, many of whom were unaware of the cultural value of the manuscripts. Cotton’s skill lay in finding, purchasing and preserving these ancient documents.”

A great picture – but of a scene that no longer existed by the time of Philip Morant’s 1748 book.

 

 

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Post published: May 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2019