The older charities of Plymouth / by R.N. Worth.

  • Richard Nicholls Worth
Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The older charities of Plymouth / by R.N. Worth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    houses, there must have been several. None of it can be followed in connection with any of the other charities of the town, though there are properties belonging to some of these of whose dedication to charitable purposes there is no record. But it hardly seems possible that, it can have passed into or through the hands of the Commonalty without some evidence of the fact. The Maudlyn may have held property in the town under the Corporation, though it does not appear in the ancient rentals under that name; for there is a record in 1491-2 of rents paid by the “wardens of St. Mary,” and this may mean St. Mary Magdalene.1 THE ALMSHOUSES. The “Almshouse of Plymouth,” known in late years as the Corporation Almshouse and the “Old Church Twelves,”2 is the most ancient charity existing in the town. It finds mention in the oldest Corporation rental extant (6 and 7 Henry VII., 1491-2), in which the Wardens of the Almshouse (Custod domq Elosinar) are set to pay 2s. 4d. No doubt some, at least, of its belongings formed part of the manorial property which passed to the Mayor and Commonalty under the Act of Incorporation from the Priory of Plympton; but whether the house itself existed before that time is uncertain. Still there are grounds for believing that it did. Its destruction in 1868 revealed the semi-Norman arch now in our Museum, which unquestionably formed part of the original Church of St. Andrew; at least, there is no other local building to which it can be assigned. This would carry back the erection of the Almshouse to the date of the substitution of old St. Andrews by the present fabric, unless the arch had formed part of another building in the interim. And for the Church reconstruc- tion, the only dates we have are the erection of the south aisle of the Virgin in 1385, of the north aisle of St. John the Baptist in 1441, and of the tower about 1460. No doubt the Almshouse was the “ Hospitale House ” mentioned by Leland “ on the north side 1 The house of the Fraternity of Corpus Christi—the Municipal Guild— passed to the Mayor and Commonalty. In 1610 we read : “ William Brook- ing and John Brooking for a Tentt adioyning to the Church yard wherein Robert Stephens weaver nowe dwelleth, knowen by the name of Corpus Christ house, wlh the garden to the same house adioyning on wch garden certen dwelling houses are buylded. viijs.” 2 Simply because it stood by the Church in Catherine Lane, at the eastern end of the Municipal Buildings.
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