Site Event/Activity record ESF20015 - Leiston Old Abbey Chapel, Building Recording

As part of a grant aided programme of consolidation works to the building known as Minsmere Chapel, English Heritage required archaeological recording and interpretation to be undertaken. The site that lies within the coastal marshes now occupied by a RSPB bird reserve was that of the first Leiston Abbey built by Ralph de Glanville in about 1182 with a dedication to St. Mary de Insula. Due to increasing inundation by the sea, in 1363 a new abbey complex was built by Robert de Ufford the a site further in land. Documentary evidence suggests that a presence was maintained at the old site until the dissolution and the building on the site is the only surviving evidence of this. Aerial photographs and geophysical survey suggest that the building was constructed within the body of the original abbey church that itself lay immediately south of a cloister. Three main phases of construction were recognised. The first, represented by the lower sections of the standing walls, had evidence surviving for three contemporary windows, a doorway and an enigmatic internal niche. This initial phase was thought to date to soon after the abandonment of the abbey in 1363. The second phase was represented by the upper sections of the wall with their characteristic use of brick and evidence two additional windows and the blocking of the Phase II windows. This phase has tentatively been associated with John Green who when he retired as Abbot of the abbey at the new site in 1527 lived out his years as a hermit at the chapel. The third phase involved the insertion of a World War II pillbox into the eastern end of the structure and utilised the existing architectural openings.