Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The early, Norman, Cheker Building was originally a lofty and distinct building of three storeys which stood in front of the Infirmary Hall and occupied the east side of the Infirmary Cloister. This Cheker Building was, after the Dissolution, fitted up first as a house for one of the six preachers, afterwards used as a chorister's school, and finally employed as an additional space for the Library, with which it was in contact with at the south end.

Monument Types

• BUILDING (Medieval to Modern - 1285 AD? to 1942 AD)

Full description

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The Cheker Building was situated to the south of the Prior's Entry, above an existing passage way 'Prior's Passage' or Dark Entry as it is also known, which leads from the Green Court via Prior's Gateway to the Infirmary cloister.

The early, Norman, Cheker Building was originally a lofty and distinct building of three storeys which stood in front of the Infirmary Hall and occupied the east side of the Infirmary Cloister. It was known as the Camera ad Scaccarium cum Diverorio ibidem, in the list of Prior De Estria's works c. 1285-1290. The Scaccarium, or Cheker, in a monastery is used in the sense of an office or counting-house, where accounts were kept and payments made. It was probably the Bursar's or or principal counting-house in contact with the Infirmary. There were a number of chambers one of which was probably used by the Bursar as a bedroom.

In the thirteenth century a new building was constructed which covered the west gable of the Infirmary Hall, and extended 24 feet beyond it northwards, over the Prior's Entry, so as to overlap and unite with the original Norman building the Camera Vetus. The new Cheker Building was of three storeys with a high pitched roof continuing the chamber accommodation of the earlier Norman one, which was also of three storeys. The Norman building, however, had a room on the ground-floor, and a Norman entrance arch into the Prior's Entry. But the later Cheker Building, erected over the pre-existing passage and cloister-alley had no chambers on the ground-floor. Like all medieval ranges of chambers, this building consisted of two parallel walls of stone, with floors, divided into rooms and passages by wooden partitions. The north wall of the Cheker Building which crossed the entry was carried on a central pier with two segmental pointed arches. The chamber above had two single-light windows and there were probably similar windows in the second storey. There was a door at first floor level which led to a staircase down into the Infirmary cloister below.

This Cheker Building was, after the Dissolution, fitted up first as a house for one of the six preachers, afterwards used as a chorister's school, and finally employed as an additional space for the Library, with which it was in contact with at the south end.

The old library was destroyed by a high explosive bomb during World war II in 1942. The Wolfson Library an additional library to that in the Cloister (Howley Harrison Library) was built on the ruins of the old monastic Cheker Building during the 1950's. Designed by Harold Anderson, it was made possible by a generous gift from the Wolfson Foundation, after which the Library was named.

Willis, R., 1868, 'The Architectural History of the Conventual Buildings of the Monastery of Christchurch in Canterbury' (Article in serial). SKE30206.

Ingram Hill, D., 1976, Christ's Glorious Church, The Story of Canterbury Cathedral (Monograph). SKE30200.

Collinson, P., Ramsey, N. & Sparks, M., 1995, A History of Canterbury Cathedral (Monograph). SKE30201.

Blockley, K., Sparks, M. & Tatton-Brown, T., 1997, Canterbury Cathedral Nave, Archaeology, History and Architecture (Monograph). SKE29723.

Sources and further reading