Building record WGD 007 - Wingfield College (Med)

Priests college, founded 1362. Cecil Hewett dates hall to circa 1300; priests probably took over and extended manor house of Wingfields. Only surviving timber-framed medieval religious house, disguised as Palladian building in C18 and believed destroyed until restoration by present owner (S1)(S3).
Morley confirms the building had been a religious college presided over by a succession of provosts in the C14-C16. In this time the College was granted and bequeathed land in the surrounding villages, including land in Wingfield & Stradbroke. According to Morley dissolution of the College occurred in 1542. Writing in 1928 he comments that the building resembled a house of 1700' (S4).
Medieval aisled hall is dated c.1383 by Martin Bridge, based on his knowledge of dendrochronology (S9).
College was built in three phases over a period of 20-30 years (S10).
1997: Geophysical survey (S2) - details in file.
1999: Tree-ring analysis, Wingfield College was founded in AD 1362, although the date of the extant building is not known with certainty. Three early phases of construction have been hypothesised in recent studies of the building, and it was hoped that dendrochronological study might be able to confirm their veracity and date them more accurately. Unfortunately, most of the trees felled for this building were under fifty years old and only three timbers dated, their felling date range suggesting a period for the construction of the third proposed phase in the early AD 1380s. It is suggested that a programme of tree-ring studies is needed in this region to improve the chances of successful dendrochronological dating in the future (S11).