Elstow Moot Hall 2 sml - a photo on Flickriver

            Elstow, Bedfordshire is famous for its dissident preacher and author John Bunyan who came from this village. His most famous work "The Pilgrim's Progress" has never been out of print. As a boy he rang the bells in the Abbey tower (right).
Countess Judith, niece of William the Conqueror, founded a Benedictine nunnery in Elstow in the year 1078. The Elstow nuns came from wealthy families and each came with an endowment of money and/or lands.
In 1538 Elstow Abbey was valued as being the eighth richest nunnery in England. On 26 August 1539, the Abbess was forced to surrender the Abbey, the manor of Elstow and all the Abbey's other lands and estates throughout England, to King Henry VIII, as part of his Dissolution of the Monasteries
Moot Hall (or "The Green House") stands in isolation on Elstow village green. This Tudor timber-framed building was built in the 15th century, possibly by the Abbey's carpenter William Arnold, to provide both a courtroom and a market house.
When first constructed, the timber frame would have been in-filled with wattle and daub, rather than brick. The original building was jettied on all four sides and had only four bays on the ground floor, the three westernmost each containing two small shops. Each shop had a separate door with a broad window, with a four-centred arch above. These windows may have had a hinged wooden panel that could be let down into the window opening and used as a serving counter. Parts of the partitions between the shops remain; slots in the ceiling and floor beams showing where the other vertical timbers once stood.
The fourth bay contained a separate room, with an east–west ladder stairway to the upper storey, which consisted of one large hall. The external door to the fourth bay was probably at the southern end of the east wall.
Sometime after the original construction, a fifth bay was added to the east end, including a large chimney breast. This contains fireplaces on both storeys, suggesting that it was designed as accommodation for high-status visitors to the wealthy nunnery. Probably at the same time, the window in western wall was moved to a higher position; a cellar was excavated under the fourth bay; a north–south staircase was erected; an Elizabethan doorway (now removed) was inserted into the north wall where the easternmost shop stood; and the external wattle and daub in-fill was replaced with bricks.
During renovations in 1950, the building was restored to its original Medieval form and the window in the western wall moved back down, but the external walls' brick in-fill was retained. The timbers of the Medieval roof were also left intact, with new rafters being laid over the originals.
Similar late-mediaeval market houses, with a long chamber on the upper floor, are rare. Two others survive in Buckinghamshire, at Long Crendon and West Wycombe and a similar, but later, example is to be found in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. However, Moot Hall is thought be unique, being the only known example of a market house, built by a nunnery, combining a courtroom and shopping centre.
For many years, it was thought that the downstairs shop bays were only used for storing stalls and other equipment in connection with the Abbey's bi-annual fairs. However, investigations carried out in the 1990s into the building's method of construction indicated that the six shop bays were probably permanent shops, used throughout the whole year.
The Abbesses of Elstow held the title of lord of the manor and acted as local magistrates, hence their need for the courtroom which, in the case of Moot Hall, was located in the main upper room. As well as being used as a manorial court, it would have been used as a Court of Piepowders for the settling of disputes arising during the Abbey's (and, after 1539, Elstow village's) large, four-day, May fairs.
This upper room was probably also used through most of its history as a village meeting place, hence its present name ('Moot Hall' being the medieval term for a meeting place). Some early records refer to it as "The Green House". Whether it was also known in early times as "Moot Hall" is not known – the earliest known recorded instance of it being referred to as such is in Reverend John Brown's biography of John Bunyan, in which he refers to it as 'what we may call Moot Hall'.

   

Taken in: United Kingdom / England / Kempston (show map)

Taken on: July 22, 2017

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Camera: Nikon D810, f/11.0, 1/30 sec, 19mm, ISO 80 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D810
Aperture:	f/11.0
Exposure Time:	0.033 sec (1/30)
Focal Length:	19mm
ISO:	80
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 (Windows)
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