Number Three

Next to Little Cloister House is No 3, an excellent example of a house whose modest exterior belies a history full of interest and relevance to the activities of cathedral and close.

No 3 stands on the site of the "Common Kitchen", presumably the same building as the monastic Great Kitchen which served the Refectory. By 1612 this kitchen had become redundant as the prebendaries and minor canons were, after some seventy years, now settled as a family group in separate dwellings. Thus, Prebendary Elias Wrench who had Little Cloister House, and was blessed with eight children, gained the lease of No 3 which he made over to his four-year-old son, Simon. Much rebuilding was done, rooms were panelled, and ceilings plastered.

Simon, or his subtenant John Merroe - a lay clerk who taught "the children to play on the viols" - had the lease till Elias' widow took it over in 1633. By 1649 George Wall was tenant, and at the Restoration he entertained the returning Bishop. His son sublet to Abraham Gregory, usher at the College - now King's School. His successor was Dr Richard Parsons, Chancellor of the Diocese, who may have written there his History of Gloucestershire, the basis of Sir Robert Atkyns work of 1712.