The Bull, Canterbury, Kent (A 15th century Inn)

This fifteenth century building is perhaps the most visually impressive of the medieval Pilgrim Inns of Canterbury. It was built to accommodate the hoards of pilgrims who journeyed to the city to visit the holy shrine of the saint, Thomas Becket, in Canterbury Cathedral.

The obituary of Prior Goldstone I (1449–68) (published in H Wharton, 'Anglia Sacra' (1691)) tells us that the Prior built near the cemetery gate of the Priory a wooden building, containing many lodgings, called 'The Bull'. The inn was built around a courtyard and had three main ranges. On the west was a double-jettied range facing the Buttermarket (formerly known as the Bullstake) which appears to have had original brick fireplaces on the eastern side, clearly the best rooms in the building. The north range, also double-jettied, faces onto Burgate Street and the single-jettied eastern range faced onto Butchery Lane (formerly Sunwin's or Angel Lane). All the lodgings in the building were above shops on the ground floor and each group appears to have had a separate staircase as in the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge and the Inns of Court in London, which all had similar origins. Many details of the framing, windows, doors, partitions, etc. can still be seen.

The name 'The Bull' or 'The White Bull' has earlier origins than the extant fifteenth century inn. This was the name given to a great stone house built on the site by the Priory at the end of the 12th century. In a rental of c.1200 this building is referred to as the 'Great Stone House' and in the City fee farm document dated 1234 it is recorded as 'the stone house opposite the old gate' (the Cemetery Gate). A rental of c.1370 refers to a rent of 20 pence for the building 'in the corner of St Andrew's parish, called the Whitebull'. Fragments of this late twelfth century stone building can be seen in the cellars beneath parts of the 15th structure.

The Trust's reconstructed panorama of the Buttermarket area in the mid 16th century shows the Buttermarket (then called the "Bullstake") and the Bull inn at the centre of the view. The Christ Church Gate can be seen top centre above the market and inn. The gate, built by 1517, incorporates some of the earliest Renaissance detail surviving in the city. To the left of the gate is the porter's lodge, a fine, jettied, timber building, parts of which still survive. To the right is 'The Sun Inn'. Substantial parts survive as the Cathedral Gate Hotel with a restaurant beneath.

The Bull Inn: Burgate Street frontage showing existing and reconstructed fabric.

A leaflet about the city's Pilgrim Inns is available from CAT (see Publications).

You can also go to Reconstructing a Tudor City for more about this part of Canterbury in the 16th century.

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