Choir House, The King's School
Worcester

The site was wholly within the precincts of the Priory of St Mary, the cathedral church of the bishops of Worcester, as they were defined from the early 13^th century until the dissolution.  St Mary’s was one of only four Norman cathedrals in England to be served by a religious order.

The area of College Green formed part of the priory precinct at the time of the Norman conquest.  Urse d’Abitot, the Sheriff of Worcestershire, built Worcester Castle to the south of the cathedral some time before 1069 (Pevsner), and its outer bailey occupied land which had previously been part of the monastic graveyard.  D’Abitot’s impious act was rewarded by Bishop Ealdred’s curse “Hightest thou Urse! Have thou God’s curse!” (Calthrop, 1906, p96).

Some time around 1204, King John returned to the priory that land which had been taken by the castle in the 11^th century. [1]    It seems likely that a new precinct boundary was built at this time, bisecting the castle’s outer bailey.  In 1217 an arrangement is recorded whereby the bishop possessed the castle bailey but the king retained the moat. [2]

The rebuilding of much of the church in the 14^th century was accompanied by large scale projects in the rest of the priory.  The Guesten Hall was built in 1320, the refectory and cloister rebuilt in 1372, and a new infirmary built in 1379 (Barker, 1994, p75).  The priory precinct wall was improved by the completion of the Edgar Tower in 1368-9 and the Water Gate in 1378 (ibid). 

By the time the original priory grounds were restored to the priory there had been a century and a half in which the standard major monastic buildings had been constructed.  There would have been no pressing reason to build on the newly re-acquired land.  However, Noake, (1866) suggests that the south side of the green had been occupied by  ancillary buildings including granaries, stables, a wash-house and a malt kiln by the end of the monastic period.

At the dissolution of the priory in 1540, the endowments of the priory were transferred to the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral.  This in turn led to the founding of the King’s School in 1541.

The monastic buildings were utilised as houses for the secular canons or prebendaries of the cathedral.

The core part of what is now number 3 College Green is marked as a prebendary house on George Young’s plan of Worcester published in 1790.  On 7^th August 1882, a chapter meeting decided that ‘the house now occupied by Mr Wright, coming into the possession of the Dean and Chapter at Michaelmas next, it be considered as a Choristers’ or Choir House in which choristers be lodged, boarded and educated’ (Craze, 1972).

The necessary alterations to the building were made and on 3^rd November 1882 the building was ready for the sixteen choristers.  This was a separate establishment from the King’s School and the choristers were given permission to use the area between the Chapter House and the Guesten Hall as a playground (ibid).

Number 3 College Green was extended forward into the close in 1902 (ibid).  A single storey flat roofed extension which had previously stood against the western wall of Choir House was demolished to make way for this extension.

Excavations in the grounds of Hostel House in 2000 included exposure of part of the precinct wall (Wainwright, 2000).

Further excavations in summer 2000 associated with laying a new road surface through the Edgar Tower exposed the foundations of an earlier gateway.  This may have been the gateway recorded as being built by King John, originally associated with the castle rather than the priory (pers comm, Chris Guy).

In 1970 monitoring and excavation on the lines of pipe trenches in South Passage and the northern side of College Green identified 36 inhumations.  Grave cuts were not distinguishable and although some of the nails found were presumably coffin nails, most of the finds were Roman.  The only find which could definitely be dated to the medieval period was one sherd of late Saxon pottery (Clarke, 1980a). 

Helen Clarke says that the lack of later material ‘implies that burial there ceased with the Norman improvements’ – that is mainly the 12^th century priory refectory.  It should perhaps be added that the date of the discontinuance of the use of this cemetery also fits with the known desecration by Urse d’Abitot.

Trench A 

Trench A was excavated in order to upgrade the existing electricity supply from the mains situated under the driveway around College Green to the west of Choir House (number 3, context 44).  The trench originated at a point 2.70 metres to the west of the front wall (64) of the house, extending east under the wall, and then beneath the floor to cut through the top of the cellar wall (29), some 3 metres inside the building.

Tarmac layer 19 formed the surface of the Close in this area.  This was laid directly above an earlier tarmac layer (20) which had been cut by pipe trench 22 in the relatively recent past in order to insert a new water main.  Tarmac 19 had been laid over the whole area including the fill (23) of this trench.  The electricity mains trench (24) and its fill (25) had been sealed by tarmac 20.

Trench 24 cut a compacted sandy clay layer (21) which contained some broken brick, numerous fragments of sandstone and many rounded pebbles.  This layer continued westward; under the brick front wall (74) of the house; beneath a concrete floor (78) and finally butting the external face of the wall (29) of the cellar.  The foundation trench (75) for wall 74 had been cut into layer 21.  At the inside of this front wall the trench was also filled with layer 76. 

At the external (eastern) side of the wall was a 140mm wide brick-lined gully (26) which was 220mm deep and had a capping of brick (77).  The gully was 350mm below the present ground surface at a level 150mm lower than the projecting foundation courses for the wall, which stood 130mm to the east.  Above the capping, rubble layer 76 filled the part of the foundation trench in this area.

Inside the building, the removal of layer 21 exposed a dark grey-brown soil with a compacted surface consisting of pebbles and small pieces of sandstone (30).  This layer also butted the stone cellar wall (29) which was 0.90 metres thick with a height from the floor of the cellar of 22m OD.  Above 29 was a slightly narrower (0.75 metres) piece of walling (28) upon which concrete floor 78 had been directly laid.