Chichele College

The gatehouse, chapel and other remains of a communal residence for priests serving the parish church, founded by locally-born Archbishop Chichele before 1425. Regularly used to display works of art. 

Chichele College was founded by Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1414 to 1443 and the founder of All Souls’ College, Oxford. He was born in Higham Ferrers in about 1362.

The buildings here were partly complete when the foundation ceremony took place in 1425.

Chichele is a rare surviving example of a chantry college, a type of institution common in England in the 14th and 15th centuries. The colleges’ prime concern was to offer prayers for the souls of the patron and his family, and often they also had an educational function.

Chichele College was provided with a master, seven chaplains, four clerks and six choristers. It had close links with the parish church, and the town’s school and bedehouse (almshouse), for the ‘deserving’ poor and elderly. 

The college was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1542, and the building has been much altered since, so that many of the original features have disappeared. Parts of the south and east ranges were adapted to form a smaller building, which in the 18th century served as an inn.

By the early 20th century it was reduced to a single farm cottage with an attached granary.