site of Merton Priory Chapter House (underground remains) (London)

 ruins, monastery, underpass, invisible

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The ruins of the Chapter House of Merton Priory have been preserved directly underneath the road. They are occasionally open to the public, but most of the time they are only visible (if you peer into the darkness for long enough) through grills in the pedestrian subway here, as well as in the south side of the road embankment.

Merton Priory was founded in 1114, and in 1117 (colonised by canons from the Augustinian priory at Huntingdon) it was re-sited here, conveniently close to the River Wandle. It became an important centre of learning. Walter de Merton (Lord Chancellor, Bishop of Rochester, and founder of Merton College, Oxford) took his name from the Priory, having been educated there in the 1230s. In 1236 Henry III held a Parliament here at which the Statute of Merton was agreed allowing Lords of the Manor to enclose common land provided that sufficient pasture remained for their tenants.

The Priory was demolished in 1538, and much of the stone was reused at Nonsuch Palace (near Epsom; of which little remains). The survival of any trace the Chapter House ruins is quite surprising, as a railway once went directly over this site.