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Chesterton Tower

Grade I listed buildings in CambridgeUse British English from February 2023
Chesterton Tpwer Cambridge
Chesterton Tpwer Cambridge

Chesterton Tower is a Grade I listed medieval tower located in Chapel Street, Chesterton, Cambridge. The two-storey 14th-century tower is the former residence of Italian procurators of the abbot of Vercelli in Italy. It stands in the former vicarage garden of nearby St Andrew's Church, Chesterton. Built from field stones, clunch, brick and ashlar quoins, the tower is, unusually, not a fragment but a complete dwelling with vaulted ceilings, a spiral staircase and garderobe. The lower storey is vaulted in two bays with chamfered ribs and carved bosses. A restoration was completed in 1949.In 1217 as an expression of gratitude for his assistance in preventing civil war, the Chesterton church was given by Henry III to the Papal Legate Cardinal Guala. He subsequently bestowed the buildings upon the abbey at Vercelli. A procurator, probably a canon of the abbey, resided at the tower and represented the foreign ownership. It is thought that the vicarage was probably a separate building.In 1440 Henry VI gave these buildings to King's Hall, Cambridge which later became Henry VIII's Trinity College. The tower is an uncommon survivor of a mid-14th-century dwelling.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Chesterton Tower (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Chesterton Tower
Chapel Street, Cambridge Chesterton

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Latitude Longitude
N 52.216944444444 ° E 0.14 °
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Chesterton Tower

Chapel Street
CB4 1DY Cambridge, Chesterton
England, United Kingdom
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Chesterton Tpwer Cambridge
Chesterton Tpwer Cambridge
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St Andrew's Church, Chesterton
St Andrew's Church, Chesterton

St Andrew's Church, Chesterton is a Church of England parish church in Chesterton, Cambridge. It is a Grade I listed building. A church was first recorded on this site around 1200. The church was presented in 1217 to the papal legate, Cardinal Guala, by Henry III of England, in gratitude for the legate's attempt at reconciliation during domestic unrest at the end of the reign of King John. In 1436 Henry VI seized ownership of the church and associated buildings from the Italian Abbey of Vercelli and gave it to King's Hall, Cambridge which later became Trinity College, Cambridge. Trinity College is the church's patron to this day; with many vicars of Chesterton being fellows of Trinity. Built from flint, rubble and clunch with ashlar on the tower and buttresses. The tower has two bell-openings (decorated) and is topped by a spire lit by small windows. The spire was restored in 1847 and the spare, tower and chancel in 1968. The windows are in the perpendicular style, except the easternmost window in the south aisle which is decorated.The interior has an aisled nave with arcades of seven bays, each with octagonal piers dating from the 14th century on each side there is a clerestory dating from the 15th century. Above this lies the roof is supported by stone corbels, and below the floor is laid with polychromatic tiles. The church is lit via stained glass dating from the 19th century. There is a 15th-century Doom painting above the chancel arch. Outside, the graveyard is of interest and is listed. On the church's north wall, a plaque to Anna Maria Vassa (died 1797), eldest daughter of the former slave and anti-slavery campaigner Olaudah Equiano, commemorates a link with the abolition of the slave trade. Nearby are the Old Manor House to the south, the vicarage (1820) to the east and Chesterton Tower is a little further away just off Chapel Lane.

Chesterton Hall
Chesterton Hall

Chesterton Hall is a house in Chesterton, Cambridge. It lies in the city of Cambridge in the county of Cambridgeshire approximately 50 miles (80 km) north-northeast of London. Most of the grounds have long since been sold off and the house is now located on one of the major roundabouts of the city. The house dates from the early 17th century. The house was built by the Hobsons: the younger, Thomas Hobson lived at Chesterton Hall in 1627, four years prior to his death in 1631. Build of red brick, the original main south front has two storeys and three bays, with mullioned and transomed windows, including a central oriel, all their stone dressings being renewed, and above them round-gabled dormers. A north wing behind has an octagonal north-west stair tower. The house was considerably remodelled in the mid 19th century, probably by T.H. Naylor, to provide a more ornate front to the west, including a new porch and another rectangular stair tower north of the back wing. It was further enlarged after 1900. Chesterton Hall was sold in 1799 to William Wragg, long its tenant and already a landowner at Chesterton. At his death in 1804 Wragg left the former Chettoe lands to his eldest son William (d. 1829), who devised them to his widow Mary for her life. She survived their only child, a daughter (d. 1834), and at inclosure in 1838 was allotted 328 a. for the 287 a. that she claimed. Other land had passed after 1804 to William's younger son John (d. 1823). John's son William (d. 1859), also Mary's tenant at inclosure, then owned c. 155 a. His widow Elizabeth (d. 1884) married the Cambridge lawyer T. H. Naylor, who until the late 1870s acted as patron of many village activities. William's son Capt. Francis William Wragg, of age in 1865, also inherited Mary Wragg's lands in 1866, but died without issue in 1876, (fn. 20) leaving all his property to his widow Johanna Cornelia. In 1879 she married Theodore Thomas Gurney (d. 1918). Being childless, Mrs. Wragg Gurney had already before she died in 1922 given almost all her Chesterton lands, 403 a. north-west of the village, to St. John's College, Cambridge, of which Gurney had been a fellow. The college sold much of the land for building in the 1930s, the rest after 1945. In 1945 it was acquired from St. John's College, Cambridge by the city council, which converted it into flats. Chesterton Hall was Grade II-listed on 26 April 1950.