44 and 45 HIGH STREET
Grade II* Listed


Drawing by C G Harper
Courtesy of Historic England Archive

One of the most exuberant and well-preserved commercial buildings in Canterbury, 44-45 High Street is a 16th century three storey jettied building with the current facade added in the 17th century and the dormer windows in the 18th century. The plastered panels on the second floor date from 1663. This building was probably originally constructed as a pilgrim's lodging house, and remained in use as an inn until the late 18th century.

Theatre performances are known to have taken place in the Yard behind the Inn, by then called the Crown, in the 1720's. The building has passed through a range of commercial activities since then and is currently a café where refreshment can be enjoyed upstairs in the still impressive first floor chamber. This room is now known as "Queen Elizabeth's Guest Chamber", following the legend that Queen Elizabeth I stayed there during her 15 days, 40th birthday visit to Canterbury in September 1573. However there is ample contemporaneous evidence that she and much of her Council and Court actually stayed elsewhere.

 

Fyndon's Gate
Grade I Listed
1830 engraving William Westall

In 1538 the Commissioners of Henry VIII had seized St. Austin's (now known as St. Augustine's Abbey) which had occasionally been used as a convenient place for Henry and other royal travellers to reside as guests of the abbot, whilst they were passing through Canterbury. The very large house of the abbot now became the main part of a new royal palace, approached through the still impressive Fyndon's Gate. The refurbished palace included adjacent ancilliary buildings and when completed was leased in 1564 to Lord Cobham.

At this period the palace was surrounded by a substantial courtyard wall and this situation offered a far better protected and more comfortable residence for a Queen than a High Street inn! However, as the royal entourage on a typical Elizabethan progress was around 2000 strong, plus horses, there is little doubt that most of the inns in Canterbury and their stables, including the Crown, would have been requisitioned as overflow accommodation. The Archbishop of Canterbury's palace, next to the Cathedral, and other large houses around Canterbury would also have been filled with guests.

Evidence for the Queen's actual lodging place on that occasion is further contained in a letter from her host in Canterbury, Archbishop Matthew Parker, two years later to the Archbishop of York, Edmund Grindal:

"And I left her at Dover, and came home to Bekesborne that night: and after that, went to Canterbury to receive her Majesty there which I did, with the Bishops of Lincoln and Rochester, and my Suffragan, at the West door; where, after the Grammarian had made his Oration to her upon her horseback, she alighted.
We then kneeled down, and said the Psalm Deus misereatur in English, with certain other Collects briefly;  and that in our chimers and rochets. The Quire, with the Dean and Prebendaries, stood on either side of the Church, and brought her Majesty up with a Square-song, she going under a canopy, born by four of her Temporal Knights, to her traverse placed by the Communion board; where she heard Even-song, and after departed to her lodging at St. Austin's, whither I waited upon her.
From thence I brought certain of the Council, and divers of the Court, to my house to supper, and gave them fourteen or fifteen dishes, furnished with two mess at my long table, whereat sat about twenty."

The progresses and public processions of Queen Elizabeth.
Volume 1 1823 John Nichols. Page 345