HOSPITAL
of the
Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary
and St John the Baptist
Founded 1220 by Peter Undergod,
Providing relief for poor, infirm
and weary travellers.
Brethren served Chantries in
Hospital and Castle chapels.
Surrendered in 1537
to the Foxe family and
Dissolution of the Hospital.
Words from British Listed Buildings and Ludlow Civic Society.
There is only a small surviving fragment of the Chapel of St John's Hospital which is now a Grade II* listed house. The building is C16th with earlier fragments, built on a three-unit plan of rubble with Welsh slate to left gable roof and old tiles to the right, there is a central brick multiple stack and a single brick stack to right rear.
The important remains of the hospital are in the leftmost unit which is of three-storeys and single-window range. On the south wall, facing the River Teme, is the restored two-storey pointed arch of the Hospital Chapel. The lower part of the arch and the western jamb are intact and date from the early C13th. The western wall contains Medieval masonry, all from a small building which stood at the south-west corner of the hospital site. The three-light casement window within the arch, the four-light casement to ground floor, and the brickwork are C19th and the two-light casement window above the arch is C20th placed under a timber lintel. [The Foxe family inserted upper floors in this part of the house and added a two-bay stone wing to the east in the later 16th or early 17th century. Other parts of the hospital may have survived in a range of tenements extending northwards on Lower Broad Street. These were occupied by 'labourers and journeymen artificers' in the mid 18th century but were rebuilt c.1770. The hospital site of some 2½ acres was still accounted extra-parochial in 1790.]
Going right, a single-storey unit with attic of two-window range. Two C20th wood mullion and transom casements under a timber lintel. To their left a C20th wood cross window with casements and an C18th oak 6-panel door under a common lintel. Two C17th timber-frame and plaster gable dormers to the attic, with C19th casements under simple hoods.
The far right unit is lower and shallower with a C20th wood mullion and transom window with casements under an oak lintel. The C20th brickwork to the right gable contains an earlier two-light casement with lattice glazing.
The left returned side, to Lower Broad Street has two late C19th, 2/2 sashes to 1st and 2nd floors, of roughcast and rubble with some dressed stone exposed to the ground floor, 3-light casement and Welsh slate roof.
INTERIOR: C17th and C18th doors; exposed timber-framing and ceiling beams, exposed arch and chamfered stone fireplace to the ground floor left and a winder staircase with stick balusters.
From British History Online:- A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 2. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1973.
This hospital stood at the northern end of the Teme Bridge, Ludlow, and was founded by the Ludlow burgess Peter Undergod. In his foundation charter, probably executed in the 1220s, Undergod endowed the hospital with a fulling mill on the Teme, which he had acquired from Walter De Lacy's son Gilbert, and with rents in Ludlow and lands at Rock (in Stanton Lacy) and Ludford. It is clear from the charter that the hospital was already in existence and that Undergod was then its master. Walter de Lacy, as manorial lord, executed at least four charters in favour of the hospital before his death in 1241. In addition to confirming the foundation charter he granted the hospital exclusive right to full the cloth of the men of Ludlow, liberty to trade on his estates quit of toll, and the amercements of his tenants in Rock and Stanton Lacy manors. It was not felt necessary to secure royal confirmation until 1266.
The forms of a religious life were still being observed in 1535, for two chaplains received stipends of £2 apiece, and £3 6s. 8d. was said to be spent annually on alms. A lay steward and receiver were employed, and a further £4 was being paid to a Crown corrodiary. In 1537 Leighton granted the hospital to William Foxe and his son Edmund and in 1539, with the consent of the bishop, Leighton surrendered the mastership to Charles, brother of Edmund Foxe, who subsequently received a pension of £6 a year from the grantees. Although Edmund Foxe stated in 1546 that he was paying £9 19s. 8d. a year to the two priests for their service in the castle chapel of St. Peter and 60s. a year in alms, it is clear that conventual life had ceased by this date. In 1547 the hospital's estates were granted by the Crown to John, Earl of Warwick, who immediately conveyed them to William and Edmund Foxe.
Part of the hospital buildings was converted into a house, which was occupied by various members of the Foxe family until the early 17th century. The church was still being used for worship, presumably as a private chapel, in 1564, when Jane, widow of William Foxe, left a chalice and other church goods there to her son Edward. It was apparently intact in 1577, when a sketch shows a small rectangular building with a round-headed door on its northwest gable, two round-headed windows on the southwest wall, and a bellcote near the south-east gable. The church was described as 'decayed' in 1593 and was largely demolished by Ludlow corporation in 1636, when the materials were used to repair the parish churchyard wall.
The Foxe family inserted upper floors in this part of the house and added a two-bay stone wing to the east in the later 16th or early 17th century. Other parts of the hospital may have survived in a range of tenements extending northwards on Lower Broad Street. These were occupied by 'labourers and journeymen artificers' in the mid 18th century but were rebuilt c. 1770. The hospital site (2½ a.) was still accounted extra-parochial in 1790.
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