The
ruin of the former chapel of medieval Dunwich's
leper community sits in the graveyard of St
James, although it would be more accurate to say
that the church was built, in the 1830s, in the
former grounds of the leper hospital, which had
also been dedicated to St James.
It was in 1175 that a decree
was passed directing that lepers should
be accomodated in hostels on the
outskirts of towns and cared for by the
Church, so that they did not mix with the
rest of the population. The Norman
arcading in the ruined chancel here
suggests that it cannot have been long
after this that Dunwich's hospital was
erected. Today, it forms the Barne
mausoleum, so you can't go inside, but
the iron fencing conveniently marks the
point at which the former chapel was
separated from the hall and dormitory.
The
information board notes that the Hall was
about 20 metres long and 8 metres wide.
There were beds the length of the hall
with an open view of the altar. No trace
of the Hall survives today; the ruined
buttress in the south-west corner of the
graveyard which might confuse you was not
from this structure at all, but was
brought here from the now-lost church of
All Saints, which went over the cliff in
1919. The Catholic Church's care for
lepers in England did not survive the
Reformation, and by Elizabethan times the
care of the poor and sick became the
responsibility of individual parishes.
This chapel was last used in the late
17th Century, but had probably stopped
being used for its original purpose long
before this. That so much has survived
here is because the hospital was set on
the western outskirts of the town, away
from the sea: but of course, the sea gets
closer every year.
Simon Knott, August 2010
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