The Newarke College

The Newarke College. . , Summoned by Bells: the Newarke College , About 1330, Henry, Earl of Lancaster founded a hospital to look after 50 elderly people. In 1353 his son, also Henry, extended the foundation as the College of St. Mary of the Annunciation in the Newarke or 'new work'. This was a separate enclosure, adjacent to the Caste precinct and in it was a fine church intended as the last resting place of the dukes of Lancaster. The College was served by a community of a dean, canons, vicars and choristers leading a semi-monastic life. By about 1400 Newarke was surrounded by stone walls for privacy, entered through a substantial gateway. There were stone-built houses for the clergy, a cloister and standing bell tower to summon the clergy to prayer. Hidden from sight was a sophisticated sanitation system. The Newarke looked similar to surviving cathedral closes such as Salisbury. A thorn, said to be from Christ's Crown of Thorns, had pride of place church, chosen by Henry of Lancaster from Saint-Chapelle Paris at the invitation of the French King., Closure and survival , The Newarke College closed in 1547. The hospital was re-dedicated as Trinity Hospital and most of this stills stands, with its chapel, though rebuilt in the 1700s. Also still surviving are the Newarke Gateway to the precinct (known as 'The Magazine') walling, the turret gateway (damaged in an election riot in 1832) and William Wigston's chantry house. The church and the clergy houses were pulled down. Arches from the church are preserved in De Montfort University's Hawthorn Building and what may have been the Dean's house also survives as part of the University., View from the Castle motte , In 1520, the view from the motte included the Turret Gateway (1423) which led into the Caste precinct on the left and the long hall of the Hospital (1331) on the right. Beyond these buildings were stole houses for each canon, communal houses for vicars and choristers and chantry houses. The church of St Mary of the Annunciation an early example of the perpendicular style of architecture, could be seen in the background.