2014 Excavation at the King’s Observatory

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Bob Cowie, MoLA, January 2014 Recent Lecture

A welcome addition to our January 2014 Social was a talk by Bob Cowie on the MoLA/RAS Excavation at the King’s Observatory Site. The Observatory, sometimes known as Kew Observatory, is adjacent to the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Course. From the top of the Observatory building, looking across the Thames, it is possible to see Isleworth parish church and the London Apprentice, and Syon Park is also nearby. Built in 1768, the Observatory is on the site of Shene Charterhouse, a Carthusian Monastery. Other buildings on the site dating from the 19th and 20th centuries will be demolished and it is hoped to restore the site to how it was originally conceived. Two 19th century sheds had been part of a meteorological station.

Shene Charterhouse, dissolved in 1538/9, was one of two monasteries founded in the area by Henry V. The other, Bridgettine, monastery was established just across the Thames but in 1426 was moved to a site in the present Syon Park. The two monasteries are mentioned in Shakespeare’s play “Henry Fifth” as “two chantries” which the king says he has founded. The Syon monastery was a double house of monks and nuns, the brothers living in the cloister on the South side of the church. A dig was begun there by Time Team in 1993, and continued 1994-2011 by Birkbeck College.

Just upriver of the Charterhouse was Shene, later Richmond, Palace. An earlier phase of this was demolished by Richard II after his wife died of the plague there. It was vacant for some 20 years before Henry V re-established it.

The Shene Carthusian Monastery was one of ten in medieval England, but was the richest by quite a large margin. Another was at Mount Grace, Yorkshire which still gives an indication of what these Carthusian monasteries were like. Compared to other monasteries, they were very unusual. Whereas other orders tended to be communal, eating together in refectories and sleeping in dormitories, Carthusian monks spent most of their lives in isolation, in separate cells. This necessitated a very large cloister. The cells were the size of a modern two-up, two-down house, with a back garden containing a toilet accessed by a covered way; at Mount Grace there is a reconstruction of a cell and toilet. The monastery would had have a very small church as the monks performed most of the religious offices in their cells; at Mount Grace, the church was very small indeed. The monks’ food would be delivered to their cells by a lay brother via a hatch which was dog-legged so the monk inside could not be seen.

The London Charterhouse, another Carthusian monastery, was in the present Charterhouse Square north of Smithfield Market. There are guided tours of the site, but from next year it will be open to the public.

An excavation on the Observatory site carried out by people from MoLAS and RAS - a GPS survey was used rather than tapes – revealed evidence of substantial brick walls, which answered a number of questions about the monastery, for example the standard size of the cells and that of the Great Cloister. Robber trenches had been backfilled with rubble discarded during the monastery’s demolition. The walls found have been covered in protective material and sand. Evidence was also found of bedding trenches for gardens, and of a monk’s latrine, which incorporated a low arch through which waste material was probably removed (as at Syon); the neighbouring cell and toilet were also found. The latrines were wide, perhaps to incorporate a shelf for storage of urine to be used in the making of parchment. Within the footprint of a proposed lake, the ground was stripped by machine. The turf there is interesting ecologically, as it is quite old. But not a lot was found in the area of the lake, apart from a circular ‘mystery feature’, lined with steel. Material is also often found on the golf course.

Yvonne Masson