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Pacing up and down at the heels of the animals was Farmer Boldwood himself. This place was his almonry and cloister in one: here, after looking to the feeding of his four-footed dependants, the celibate would walk and meditate of an evening till the moon's rays streamed in through the cobwebbed windows, or total darkness enveloped the scene.
Round the outer courtyard, entered by the great gatehouse, which could be defended in case of need, were other buildings, barns, stables, and servants' quarters. Not far away was the hospital, and almost adjoining the principal gatehouse was the Almonry where the poorer guests were received and food served out to the needy.
The first book Caxton printed, after he returned to England and established himself at the Almonry, is supposed to be The Game and Play of Chesse, dated 1474. But some have raised doubts whether this was printed in England, as there is no actual evidence of it.
This beautiful and unique example of a staircase of this early period is the most remarkable feature of the monastic remains. Beyond the Green Court Gate stood the almonry and a granary, and south of these buildings was the Archbishop's Palace, so ruined in Puritan times that the remains of a gateway in Palace Street is practically all that can now be seen. The present palace is quite modern.
At the bottom are the cellar and almonry, then comes the Salle des Chevaliers and the dormitory, and above all are the beautiful cloisters and the refectory. Jourdain, however, only lived to see one storey completed, but his successors carried on the work and Raoul de Villedieu finished the splendid cloister in 1228.
Laurence is entirely Perpendicular, and the chantry of Abbot Lichneld, with its fan-tracery vaulting, is a gem of English architecture. Amongst the remains of the abbey buildings may be seen the Almonry, the residence of the almoner, formerly used as a gaol. An interesting stone lantern of fifteenth-century work is preserved here.
The house third from the south end, a small grocer's shop, is the one in which the great composer and musician Purcell lived. He was born in Great St. Ann's Lane near the Almonry, and his mother, as a widow, lived in Tothill Street. He is buried beneath the great organ, which had so often throbbed out his emotions in the sounds in which he had clothed them.
At court, to speak of confidence is to speak of intrigue, and to speak of intrigue is to speak of advancement. This functionary had come to be a personage of some consideration. He was a clerk, and ranked directly after the two grooms of the almonry. He had the right of entrance into the palace, but we must add, what was called the humble entrance humilis introïtus and even into the bed-chamber.
William Caxton, the first English printer, learned the art in Cologne. In 1476 he set up his press and sign, a red pole, in the Almonry at Westminster. Just before the introduction of printing the demand for MS. copies had grown very active, stimulated, perhaps, by the coming into general use of linen paper instead of the more costly parchment.
Could Caxton have looked onward for 400 years, his astonishment and gratification at these prodigious prices would doubtless have been extreme. The Almonry, or "Eleemosynary," as Stow calls it, was in two parts, of which the larger was again subdivided in two portions, parallel to the two Tothill Streets.
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