St Leonards Hospital, Alnwick

Alnwick

Last Updated:

28 Feb 2025

Alnwick

This is a

Hospital, Place of Worship, Monastery

55.423007, -1.704498

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1006595

Founded in

Medieval

Current status is

Partly Preserved

Designer (if known):

F R Wilson

Listed Grade II

There are some lovely ruins on The Peth, which is the road leading out of Alnwick northwards from the castle.

This is the restored St Leonard’s Hospital. It was founded at the turn of the 13th century by Eustace de Vesci, a widespread landowner of Norman descent and brother-in-law to King Alexander II of Scotland. It was erected next to Malcolm’s Well, where it’s believed Malcolm III was slain – given the family ties, it was very likely to be in memoriam to him.

The hospital was entirely independent and operated as part of a wider monastic complex until 1376, when it was annexed by the monks of Alnwick Abbey. They provided spiritual and medical care to passing travellers, with space for reflection, respite, and alms for the injured and needy. Historic England states the last documentary reference is in 1457, and it will surely have dissolved at the same time as the Abbey in the 16th century. From there, it was lost for centuries.

It was discovered when workmen of the Duke were draining a boggy part of the field next to the turnpike. They found the foundations, featuring unhewn stones and mortar. They dug out the stones “without any respect to order” and levelled the ground, so very little, if any, of the original layout remained. Thirty skeletons were found buried, including children, as well as a stone coffin grazed by a plough. A chalice was found next to the skeleton, indicating it may well have been a monk from the abbey. Decorated pillars, crosses, a coping stone, and the shaft of a cross were found alongside other decorated stones with roses and a fleur-de-lis. Incredibly, coins with Elizabeth, George II, and Robert Bruce were also found, which likely came from the well.

After 1845 FR Wilson, the Duke’s personal architect, was responsible for rebuilding what was found, a bit like Newminster Abbey at Morpeth. Therefore, we can only take this as an educated representation of the original chapel, which features a nave and chancel. There were also some domestic buildings to the south near the described cemetery.

Listing Description (if available)

The monument includes the buried and reconstructed standing remains of a hospital of medieval date, situated on gently sloping ground overlooking Alnwick to the south. The buried remains of the hospital were partially uncovered by ploughing in 1845 and include a chapel, well, hospital buildings and a burial ground containing a large number of graves. The upstanding remains are largely those of the lower walls of the chapel and a domestic range to the south reconstructed in 1848 by F R Wilson, architect to the Duke of Northumberland, although a plinth course on the south side is thought to be in situ. The 19th century reconstruction of these buildings incorporates original masonry including squared stone and rubble walls with cut dressings and the south wall of the chapel includes a round-arched doorway with continuous chevron moulding and an indented hood. The reconstructed chapel has a nave which is 6.7m long and 8.2m wide and a chancel which is 4.6m long and 4.9m wide. South of the chapel, the domestic building is visible as a sub-divided rectangular building 30.0m long and 6.0m wide. The walls of this building survive to a height of 0.3m and a width of 1.0m. St Leonard’s Hospital was founded by Eustace de Vescy between 1193 and 1216 on the site of a spring named Malcolm’s Well, where Malcolm III was believed to have been slain in 1093. The hospital was an independent religious establishment until 1376 when it was annexed to the Premonstratensian Alnwick Abbey. The last documentary reference to the hospital is in 1457 and it is believed to have fallen into disuse by the time of the Reformation (c 1535) and subsequently all trace of the building became lost. In 1845 ploughing uncovered the partial remains of the hospital. Excavation was conducted in 1975 to confirm the extent of surviving archaeological remains. This revealed the remains of a well built over the infilled spring known as Malcolm’s Well. St. Leonard’s Hospital lies within the Alnwick Castle Registered Park and Garden Grade I and the chapel is a listed building Grade II.

Both Ordnance Survey maps illustrated here depict The Peth, Alnwick's portion of the Great North Road, with Malcolm's Cross & Well and the Hospital - our subject for this entry. In the 19th century all of this was agricultural land, and as noted until the mid 1840s the hospital site was a boggy corner of the field. The placement of the hospital as tribute to Malcolm is evident given the proximity of the well - where coins have been found, and the site of the cross which is supposedly where he was slain a couple hundred metres north. An 18th century iteration of the cross, replacing that from medieval times, is in situ.

The reconstructed remains of St Leonards Hospital in February 2025

St Leonards Hospital, with Malcolm's Well visible beyond the fence. Taken in February 2025