The Necessarium

Facilities

Lower Ground Floor:

Dining Room

Kitchen: Electric Oven, Gas Hob, Microwave, Fridge/Freezer, Dishwasher, Washing Machine, French Doors Leading to Courtyard

Ground Floor:

Living Room: Smart TV

Bedroom 1: Super Kingsize (6ft) Bed

Separate Toilet 

How to book

To enquire for further information and find out availability, please contact the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge reception team.

01227 865350

stay@canterburycathedrallodge.org

*Please note that the online availability checker only displays hotel availability. Please directly contact the Lodge reception team for the most up-to-date availability and prices for The Necessarium.

History of The Necessarium

The building is in a unique place, on site with the Canterbury Cathedral and The Lodge. It includes a little garden, combined with The Dark Entry, tunnel you can walk under. It was listed on the 3^rd of December 1949, located in the Northgate, Canterbury, Kent, CT1.

The main construction periods happened between the years of 1400 to 1499. Number 19 the Cathedral Precincts, known as the Prior Sellingegate. It is a 14^th to 15^th Century Gateway building, which was then restored during the 19^th century. It includes a built-in flint and ashlar and is made from two storeys.

The number 19 building was originally built in the 13^th Century. This is shown on the waterworks drawing on the south side of the Curia or Green Court, it was a long building with a leaded roof and a row of upper windows. The lavatory block was built in 1100 of flint and tufa with Caen stone quoins and pilasters. On the north side was the vaulted great drain. Only part of it may have been used as a prison. Small staircase tower was found in the north-west corner. There are two bays nearest the Dormitory which are known as ruins, where drain construction of the drain vault can be seen, with where the west wall of the block is also located. As known, it originally held fifty-five seats, but five of them were lost in 1290, were a passage, also known as ‘The Dark Entry’, was cut at the east end to make an innovative approach to the Priors Hall, Infirmary and Great Cloister. The south wall of the block near the Dark Entry is found in the existing house 19 the Precincts with 19^th century windows. The vault of the great drain is also in the house and the area besides, it was filled with earth but is now a room, with the front door, to the west side is till at first floor level. The roof timbers to the east are from the 17^th century and to the west around 1854.

In 1910, the building developed the name of Prior Sellingegate, however was discovered during an inspection by the Canterbury Archaeology Trust in 1983 that the porch to the dark entry was built by Prior Chillended in 1400. Also, the timber framing and stone corbels of the gate chamber are like those of the night passage, also known to have been built by Chillenden in 1393. When Prior Chillended built a porch to the dark entry, it also included a room that was located above with a small staircase tower for communication with a Priors Chamber or Gloriet adjoining to the south-east. The room is included with a fireplace and a window that oversees the Green Court. Chillenden’s work in the Dormitory Night Passage, makes it clear that the porch is his own work, and not Prior Sellyng’s, as named by ‘Prior Sellingegate.’

The Dark Entry forms the link between the Green Court and the rest of the Precincts and the cathedral. The Dark Entry is said to be haunted by the ghost of Nell Cook. R.H Barham in The Ingoldsby Legends recounts ‘A King’s Scholar’s Story’ about a Canon in ‘bluff King Harry’s days and his cook. Nell is buried alive and haunts the Dark Entry every Friday night. Quoted, “But one thing’s clear – that all the year on every Friday night, throughout that Entry dark doth roam Nell Cook’s unquiet Sprite… And whoso in that Entry dark doth feel that fatal breath, He ever dies within the year, some dire, untimely death.