Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The stables were built here within the precinct sometime between 1200 and 1285, as other stables were built beforehand outside of the palace precincts. The Slaughterhouse was built to the east of the stables in the corner, and the tenements were built to the east of the slaughterhouse in five bays.

Monument Types

• ABATTOIR (Unknown date)
• STABLE (Unknown date)
• TENEMENT (Unknown date)

Full description

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The Archbishop's original stables were built by the late 12th century but were situated outside of the Palace Precincts on the other side of of the road The Borough, where Cobden Place is now. It was later called 'the Borough of Staplegate' (Stable Gate) suggesting a lost gateway from the precinct to the stables.

Sometime between 1200 and 1285, a stable block was added inside the precinct, on the north-west side of the Outer Court immediately north of the main West Gate to the precincts. In a survey dated 1348-49 amongst many building reported as dilapidated are the Great Gate with Stables.

In the Paliamentary Survey of 1647, six bays of stables are recorded as floored over and boarded. To the east of these, in the corner, was a Slaughter House of two bays; all these buildings were built of brick and tiled; east of this were two tenements of five bays, part built in brick, part timber and stone and a tiled roof.

Urry, W., 1967, Canterbury under the Angevin Kings (Monograph). SKE28529.

Rady, J., Tatton-Brown, T. & Bowen, J., 1991, The Archbishop's Palace, Canterbury (Article in serial). SKE30203.

Sources and further reading