3-101-120 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Charterhouse - Great Hall, interior, c1880. Charterhouse - Great Hall, interior, c1880. The London Charterhouse is a historic complex of buildings in Clerkenwell, London, dating from the 14th century. It was originally built as (and takes its name from) a Carthusian priory, founded in 1371 on the site of a Black Death burial ground. Following the priory's dissolution in 1537, it was rebuilt from 1545 onwards to become one of the great courtyard houses of Tudor London. In 1611, the property was bought by Thomas Sutton, a businessman and "the wealthiest commoner in England", who established a school for the young and an almshouse for the old. "Now used as the Dining Hall of the pensioners. The decorations of the interior, a most beautiful example of the Renaissance, are almost entirely the work of the Duke of Norfolk, whose initials, T.N., with the date, 1571, are found in the carvings. The chimneypiece is of Sutton's time; the canon and powder barrels convey an allusion to his office of the Master of the Ordnance. The photograph shows two galleries, one on the north side over the chimneypiece, the other, for musicians, at the west end of the Hall, over the beautiful screen." Description by Alfred Marks.