Abstract

The site of the church and cloister of Chertsey Abbey was extensively excavated in 1954 and the results of this, together with some smaller subsequent investigations, are here presented and related to earlier work, especially the 19th century digging, and to the historical and early cartographic information.

Very little evidence was recovered for the site of the pre-Conquest Abbey, but it is possible to reconstruct the later precinct in some detail. The Norman church had apsidal chapels to the transepts and a triple apsed east end projecting beyond the ambulatory, with the cloistral buildings to the north, nearest the Abbey River. This general arrangement was modified, mostly in the period c 1250–1300 so that the apses were all squared, the site of the Chertsey tile kiln to the south of the church was covered by a cemetery, and the outer court was sited to the west of the church and cloister. It may have been in the ensuing half century that the precinct was walled and the elaborate system of moats and fishponds established.

The site was used as a quarry for materials to build Henry VIII’s palace at Oatlands, near Weybridge, at the Dissolution in 1537, and subsequent destruction means that very little now survives above ground.