Site of Abbess's Lodgings at Polesworth Abbey

1 After the Dissolution the site of Polesworth Abbey passed to Francis Goodere, whose son Sir Henry fashioned a manor house out of, or on the site of, the Abbess’s lodgings, W of the cloisters (see MWA207). The dining room of the later vicarage includes some material from the manor house, including a roof of three bays in which are two large pointed arches formed by hollow-chamfered beams, probably of the 15th century, carried on later wood corbels.
2 Manor house built out of or on site of Abbess’s lodgings replaced c1870 by the vicarage.
3 A programme of recording and observation was undertaken by Warwickshire Museum Field Services group between 2002-2006. A reburied medieval stone coffin and part of a brick vault was recorded in the interior of the church, during the excavation of a statue base. Medieval and later masonry was recorded during limited excavation outside the church. This may have belonged either to a monastic range west of the west range to the cloister, perhaps part of the Abbess’ Lodging, or to the west end of a building set against the church. An undercroft was also recorded.
4Trial trenching in 2007 to the southeast of the vicarage recorded a large east-west aligned building with a mostly robbed-out tile floor, terraced into a series of make-up layers in the late-13th/early-14th-century. The building is too far south to be the frater, but may have been part of the Abbess’ Lodging or a guest hall. After the dissolution the building was demolished and the area landscaped.