Ashburnham House

[4] The masonry embrasures in the front room on the ground floor expose the house's mediaeval origins from before the sixteenth-century dissolution of the Monastery, and perhaps from before the Conquest.

A fire in Ashburnham House on 23 October 1731 damaged many items: a contemporary records Dr. Bentley leaping from a window with the priceless Codex Alexandrinus under one arm.

[5] In 1739 the Dean and Chapter bought back the property from the Crown for £500,[6] and it reverted to the use of the prior's direct equivalent, the sub-dean.

Even after this was defeated by a debate in Parliament, Lord John survived until 1881, once surprising the headmaster who was looking over his garden wall from a ladder, by leaning out of a window with the words "Not dead yet, Dr.

The day-boys continued to lunch there until the 1970s, and the mediaeval ground floor is now primarily used for catering and social functions, while the seventeenth-century first floor drawing rooms, now extending right through into the former John Sergeant ante-room to School, form a superb library suite.