Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

This is possibly the site of St. Anthony's Hospital. This was the last Sandwich Hospital founded at some point before 1315. Relatively little is known of it though it continued to receive bequests throughout the fifteenth century.

Monument Types

• HOSPITAL (Medieval - 1066 AD? to 1539 AD?)

Full description

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Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Kent churchmen and local landowners created hospitals to care for the poor and the sick housing as many as 100 people. With a strong religious emphasis, most of these were built in or just outside the main towns along Watling Street.

St. Anthony's Hospital was the last of four hospitals to be founded In Sandwich being completed before 1315 to the west of the town just inside Woodnesborough Parish.(3) Testamenta Cantiana (294) indicates that 'This Hospital for Lepers was on the north side of the road leading to Each End, and is in the parish of Avudensburgh (Woodnesborough). The site called "the Mauldry," now consisting of t vo roods of land, is part of the property of the Corporation of Sandwich.' (2)Very little is known of its history but it is known that bequests continued throughout the fifteenth century. Wills are recorded in Testamentia Cantiana for the period 1475 to 1496 and bequests were also made providing food for the lepers.

The present location of St. Anthony's Hospital is unknown but it is thought that it probably stood in a 20m x 20m plot of land adjoining the North Poulders roundabout close to the milestone on the A257 trunk road.(1)

The total inmate population of the four hospitals in Sandwich during the medieval period was around forty at any given time and the number at the ancient St. Anthony's was small numbering less than ten. Sandwich and its surrounding area had a population of around 4000 during that period so the chances of entering a hospital was only one in one hundred at best; selection being based on many factors such as gender, poverty and health.(5)

The hospital appears to have died away at the beginning of the sixteenth century when donations stopped. (4)

<1> Dover District Council, 2013, Dover District Heritage Strategy (Bibliographic reference). SKE31372.

<2> Ulan Press, 2012, Testamenta Cantiana; a series of extracts from fifteenth and sixteenth century wills relating to church building and topography. (Bibliographic reference). SKE31373.

<3> British History Online, 2015, A History of the County of Kent: Volume 2 (Website). SKE31374.

<4> Kent Archaeological Society, 2003, Archaeologia Cantiana - Vol. 123 (Bibliographic reference). SKE31375.

<5> Sheila Sweetinburgh, 2010, Later Medieval Kent, 1220-1540 (Article in monograph). SKE31376.

Sources and further reading