J H Buckingham - "The ruins of Richard Lee's House at Sopwell".

Social History (Museum of St Albans)

1981.3799

Watercolour by J.H. Buckingham showing the ruins of Richard Lee's House at Sopwell, also known as Sopwell Priory or Nunnery. In the foreground grazing cows, farm buildings and carts can be seen, with an algae-covered pond on the left hand side. These are not the ruins of Sopwell Nunnery, but the remains of a house built on that site by Sir Richard Lee, who was Henry VIII’s military surveyor and a very wealthy man. He was granted the nunnery and its lands after the Dissolution. Queen Elizabeth I stayed there in 1564. The house is built of brick and flint and Totternhoe clunch, a soft local chalky stone, probably recycled from the nunnery buildings. Old London Road and Sopwell Lane became the main route to London when Sir Richard diverted the original road which passed too close to his house. In the late 17th century the house was sold to the Grimston family who by then owned Gorhambury, and they used materials from the house for building works at Gorhambury.

PH9199Buckingham.tif

Amy Cooke

Sopwell Nunnery, Cottonmill Lane, St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK.

PWD Box 43