The Deanery And Sub Dean'S Residence With The Jericho Parlour

THE DEANERY AND SUB DEAN'S RESIDENCE WITH THE JERICHO PARLOUR

This is a group value Grade I listed building comprising the former Abbot's Lodging at Westminster Abbey, principally dating from around 1370, with the Jericho Parlour added in the early 16th century, and subsequent alterations in the 17th, 18th, 19th and mid-20th centuries. The buildings are constructed of grey and buff stone with painted brick, and feature tiled and leaded roofs. They are arranged around an oblong courtyard on the west side of the Cloister, with the north range abutting the south-west tower of the Abbey and the south range flanking the Parlour. The complex extends into the north-east corner of Dean's Yard and is accessed to the main courtyard via a tierceron vaulted passage off the Parlour.

The west range contains the Abbot's Hall, now College Hall, dating from around 1370 and crowned with a 19th-century battlemented parapet. The hall interior features a low-pitched king post roof with heavy tie beams on arched braces and traceried spandrels, springing from stone angel corbels. Two-light windows with tracery similar to those in Abbot Litlyngton's mid-14th-century completion of the Cloister are present, restored with glazing dated to 1375–76. At the south end is a plain 17th-century screen with gallery, beyond which lies the kitchen with a large fireplace in the east wall. North of the hall is the Jerusalem Chamber, featuring a low-pitch arched brace tie beam roof with a renewed two-light west window and a Perpendicular four-light north window. The fireplace is of 16th or 17th-century date with Tuscan columns and two further orders of columns rising to a circa-1630 overmantel. Exceptionally fine mid-13th-century stained glass medallions reset from the Abbey Church are preserved here. The basement of the Jerusalem Chamber contains a row of oak posts running down the centre.

The north range contains the Jericho Parlour, an early 16th-century structure erected by Abbot Islip, comprising three storeys of irregular four-window width. It has a four-centred arched doorway and a later external stone staircase providing access to the first floor. Stone mullioned windows of two, three, four and eight lights with camber heads are present throughout. The basement and ground floor contain a 14th-century cross wall and a small room with an early 16th-century brick vault. The principal room on the first floor retains linen-fold panelling, and to the west of this parlour is a small lobby with an early 16th-century lamp-niche. The second floor comprises three rooms, two of which retain original early 16th-century moulded ceiling ribs, with 16th and 17th-century panelling throughout.

The east range dates from around 1370 in its courtyard-facing portion, with later alterations in stone and painted brick. It is of two and three storeys with stone mullioned square-headed windows, though the western part was rebuilt in the late 17th and early 18th centuries as two brick houses facing the garden behind the west Cloister walk. The south end of the range was rebuilt after the Second World War. These garden-facing houses are of two and three storeys with pedimented dormers to the attics and irregular three and four-light stone mullioned windows facing the courtyard. The west-facing front, dating from the 17th or 18th century, has three-window-wide elevations with flush-framed glazing bar sashes under flat gauged arches and two sashed oriels, one of them pedimented.

The south range of the Deanery spans the vaulted passage from the Parlour and features renewed three and four-light stone mullioned windows. A renewed 14th-century window lights a room containing a late 18th-century neoclassical fireplace with a circa-1740 overmantel featuring a swan-neck open pediment. The range continues into the south end of the Hall, presenting a three-storey battlemented elevation to Dean's Yard with renewed mullioned windows.