#ThrowbackThursday – Medieval Leper Hospital

This #ThrowbackThursday we are talking about one of Colchester’s lesser-known sites: its medieval leper hospital.

Leper hospitals, also known as lazer-houses after St Lazarus, are very rare across Britain. Built to accommodate and care for sufferers of the horrifying and contagious disease of leprosy, the hospitals had their own ecosystem including dormitories and a chapel. While they operated according to strict religious principles, the priority was that the patients felt at home in the institutions. The most important rule, however, was that they avoided contact with other locals. Some even carried a bell to alert the townsfolk that they were nearby!

Records of Colchester’s leper hospital are extremely scarce. We know that it was founded in the early 12th century by Eudo Dapifer, the Norman aristocrat who served as steward of Colchester for King Henry I, who was also responsible for the building of Colchester Castle. The hospital was managed by St John’s Abbey, which supplied the patients with daily allowances of bread, beer and meat.I can’t imagine modern hospitals giving out beer but they certainly do provide bread and meat at meal times! From 1189 onwards, an annual fair was held to support the hospital’s upkeep. The hospital was never a particularly rich one, and was eventually replaced by an almshouse following the Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. The almshouse fell into decline and was demolished in 1854.

Excavation work by CAT on the corner of modern day Magdalen Street and Brook Street between 1989 and 1995,revealed the remains of the small medieval hospital and recorded the stages of it’s transition to a post-medieval almshouse.The hospital’s original accommodation included an infirmary hall and a timber outbuilding in grounds situated half-a-mile from the walled town. In the c. mid 13th century, the hospital’s main quarters were relocated to a new site in the northern area of its grounds when St Mary Magdalen’s church was built on part of the hospital’s original infirmary hall. Next to the church, the eastern part of the 12th-century hall was altered and retained for a time. Foundations projecting from the south side of the church are believed to belong to a chapel for hospital inmates used from the 13th century onward. The main hospital building to the north was later joined by a second block which remained in use as an almshouse until it was demolished in 1832.

Research by work experience student Alex.

For more information, check out the report here: http://cat.essex.ac.uk/summaries/EAS-0076.html