Almonry, Sacrists Hall, Gate and Goldsmiths Tower the Sacristy Gate and Goldsmith's Tower is a Grade I listed building in the East Cambridgeshire local planning authority area, England. A Medieval Sacristy, tower.
Almonry, Sacrists Hall, Gate and Goldsmiths Tower the Sacristy Gate and Goldsmith's Tower
- WRENN ID
- fallow-passage-oak
- Grade
- I
- Local Planning Authority
- East Cambridgeshire
- Constituency
- Ely and East Cambridgeshire MP: Charlotte Cane (LD)
- Country
- England
- Type
- Sacristy, tower
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Almonry, Sacrists Hall, Gate and Goldsmiths Tower the Sacristy Gate and Goldsmith's Tower, the College, Ely
- OS grid reference
- TL 541 803
- Coordinates
- 52.39913, 0.26501
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Sacristy Gate and Goldsmith's Tower are part of a long range of buildings located on the north side of the High Street, which also includes the Almonry and the wall to the Almonry. These structures were built by Alan of Walsingham shortly after he became sacrist in 1322 and likely incorporated an older building known as The Old Hall from the 14th century. The only surviving part of Walsingham's original construction is the north wall and buttresses, made of Carr stone rubble with Barnack stone dressings. The rest of the building is primarily from the 19th century and consists of two storeys and attics.
The first-storey windows are paired and feature cusped arches with leaded lights, while the ground-storey has three-light arched windows. The north front is characterized by heavy buttresses with two offsets, and the south front, which is from the 19th century, has a parapet with a string course and is also divided by buttresses. The roof is tiled and includes 19th-century stone shafted chimney stacks and gabled dormers. The sacrists' gateway was restored in the 19th century and features flanking buttresses, rising to a crow-stepped gable on the north front and a castellated parapet on the south front. Above the archway on both fronts, there is a two-light arched window with tracery.
The Goldsmith's Tower, located at the west end of the range, housed the Goldsmith's workshop, as Alan of Walsingham was himself a goldsmith, and the sacrists' chequer. This square tower has an upper part that was rebuilt in the 19th century, featuring a high plain parapet, a string course, corner buttresses with two offsets, and a two-light pointed arched window with tracery. The ground storey includes a segmental arched entranceway.
The Almonry, the wall to the gardens of the Almonry, the Painted Chamber, the Sacristy Gate, and Goldsmith's Tower form a group with all the listed buildings on the High Street, except for No. 2.
Local climate
Almonry, Sacrists Hall, Gate and Goldsmiths Tower the Sacristy Gate and Goldsmith's Tower sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 690 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 97% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 98% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 56% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
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