NHER 26082 (Building record) - The Old Charnel House, The Close (Carnary Chapel)

1954. Listed Grade I.
Listing Description:
Chapel. Founded in 1316 by Bishop Salmon. Mason was J. Ramsey.
Stone with plain-tile roof. Four bays above four-bay twin-aisled undercroft. Door to undercroft at left-hand side with moulded two-centre surround and three cusped circular windows. Four three-light proto-Perpendicular windows with pointed two-centre arches to chapel. Cusped niches with pointed arches and crocketed finials on buttresses. Partly blocked east window with 19th century intersecting tracery. Polygonal angle-turrets in all but the northwest corner.
Information from (S1). Also a Scheduled Monument.
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 28 November 2017.

In addition to above details which are confirmed, there is a 19th century ledger slab which covers redeposited bones found when lowering the floor in the 19th century and assumed to be the body of the founder and his family.

1985. Norwich Survey.
Built in 1310 with later changes to doors and windows.
See (S2), which includes (S3).
T.E. Miller (NLA), 21 July 2004.

Undercroft inspected by E. Rose (NLA).
Notes by [1] displayed suggest the crypt was the charnel house, later part converted to a chantry, then to rooms associated with Norwich School after the Dissolution though a guild use both pre and post Reformation is possible. Various 18th/19th century graffiti, and a deeply cut bas relief coat of arms dated 1987 to 1994 with the name SAPWELL [2].
See schedule in file.
(S4) speaks of this as Norwich's version of St Stephen's Chapel Westminster.
E. Rose (NLA), 19 December 2000.

The original west door with ironwork remains.
See (S5).
E. Rose (NLA), January 2001.

Listed in Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535).
'The said chantry is no parish church of itself.'
Information from (S6).
J. Allen (NLA), 3 July 2003.

See (S7).

(S8) stresses that this was a charnel not just for the Cathedral Close but for all of Norwich. It was built to resemble a reliquary; persons passing would look through the crypt windows to see the bones of their ancestors.
E. Rose (NLA), 19 September 2006.

Press cutting (S9) in file.