The "Priests' House"

The "Priests' House" was so named by architectural historian Henry Chandlee Forman in 1938 after his discovery of the cross-shaped foundation of the nearby chapel. Until then, previous investigators had assumed this structure to be the chapel., Our excavations, in 1992 and 1993, revealed a building that appeared to have been built in two phases. The earlier phase was a cellared building, 21 feet by 16 ½ feet. It may have been built fully of brick, based on the large quantity of rubble found in the cellar. A second phase of construction had no cellar and measured about 18 feet by 28 feet., This structure was initially built in the late 17th century and possibly enlarged in the early 18th century. Based on the amount of domestic debris recovered, it appears to have been a residence. It probably stood into the second quarter of the 18th century., A working hypothesis is that the original domestic structure was enlarged by the attachment of a "mass room" after the royal governor had banned the use of the chapel for Catholic religious services in 1704. Chapels attached to or within houses were allowed under the anti-Catholic penal laws enacted after the overthrow of the Calvert government., A Mass House, After the establishment of the Church of England as the official state church of Maryland, no freestanding Roman Catholic chapels or churches were built. Instead, Catholics constructed additions to their homes called "mass houses" or "mass rooms." Several examples still survive in Maryland including one at the Carroll family estate near Ellicott City called Doughoregan Manor.