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At the suggestion of Major Teichman-Derville, who kindly
provided three workmen and obtained the necessary permission from Mrs.
Flisher, the present owner, some experimental trenches were dug during the
last week in August, 1935, on the site of the Hospital of St. Stephen and
St. Thomas, New Romney.
Founded by Adam Cherrying in 1180-85 for lepers, the Hospital
housed thirteen or fifteen "brothers and sisters" in 1322, but by
1363 no lepers had come there for a long time, and the buildings were quite
derelict. It was re-founded in that year by John Fraunceys as a sort of
almshouse attached to a chantry, with two resident chaplains, one of whom
was to be Master. The new foundation, however, was short lived, and in 1481
the buildings were once more "ruined and collapsed "and the rents
and endowments no longer sufficient to meet the expense of upkeep.
Accordingly William Waynflete,
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Bishop of Winchester, then the Patron, obtained leave to appropriate the
remaining rents to his newly founded college of Magdalen, Oxford, in whose
hands the site remained until its sale to the present owner about thirty
years ago.’
Although not a stone remains above ground to-day, there was no
difficulty in identifying the site. A map of the Hospital property made for
Magdalen College on June 12th, 1614, shows the building standing on the west
of the town, near the Appledore road.2 The field, bounded by a
track still known as the Spitalfield Lane, retains approximately its old
boundaries, and its uneven surface betrays the former
1 Cf.
Victoria County History, Kent, II, 225, and references there
given.
2 The map is preserved at Magdalen College. A
modern tracing of a part of it is in Romney Town Hall |