A Table With The Master At The Lord Leycester
Once a room only accessible to the Master and their guests, the Masters Dining Room has hosted some famous visitors over the course of its 450 years of existence. Today, this prestigious room is now open to the public where you can get a glimpse into the life of a Master of the Lord Leycester Hospital.
In this entry of the blog, we will be looking at the history of this room.
A Negative of the Masters Dining Room, John Wright ©1994.
Development of the site
Built in 1385, the Masters House was originally built for the Guild Masters of the United Guilds of Warwick making it one of the oldest rooms on site. In 1571 this would be repurposed for the Masters of the Lord Leycester Hospital.
Two such Masters were father and son: Reverend Henry Berners Shelley Harris and Reverend Phillip Sidney Harris. Over the course of their time as Master they each made significant contributions to the eclectic collection of artefacts at the Lord Leycester Hospital, many of which are on display in the Masters Dining Room.
Today, the Dining Room still boasts an impressive collection of artefacts, such as The Saxon Chair which holds mysterious origins with the accepted theory being that it is named so for the saxony region where it is believed to have come from. We also have wall hangings which were originally found in the Chapel, donated to the site by William Morris alongside a stained-glass window.
A Cannonball found at The Battle of Edgehill
Saxon Chair (right) and a copy(left)
An Altar Covering
Be our guest
The Lord Leycester Hospital has seen many guests throughout its life, including royalty such as the banquet hosted in 1617 for James I which was hosted in the Great Hall over the course of 3 days and saw the town of Warwick left with debt. The Masters Dining Room was also supposedly host to a meal between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley during her visit to Kenilworth in 1975.
In the 19th Century the Lord Leycester Hospital became a popular destination for tourists from all over the world. This was especially so with the introduction of the railway in Warwick in 1852 which enabled easier transport into the town. People of all different walks of life flocked to the Lord Leycester. Many of these visitors would also find themselves dinning with the Master, including Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde.
One such visitor was Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American author who stayed in England from 1853 to 1857 and recounted his visit to the Lord Leycester in ‘Our Old Home’. Following in his footsteps, many other American visitors visited, and many dined in the Masters Dining Room, including an inventor, an artist and a president. To find out more about our American Visitors, make sure to visit the site to see the new American Visitor exhibition that is being held in the Schoolroom.
Photographs believed to be prints collected by Professor R. Task taken C.1854. Discovered in Topeka, Kansas, United States of America.