The
Hospital of St John the Baptist was a
hospitalA hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
in
High WycombeHigh Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...
in
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
between 1180 and 1548. It was situated on the main road that ran from
OxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
to
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(what is now the
A40The A40 is a major trunk road connecting London to Fishguard, Wales and officially called The London to Fishguard Trunk Road in all legal documents and Acts...
) east of the town centre.
The Hospital
In the 12th century hospitals were used as
almshouseAlmshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...
s for the poor or infirm. Founded by the
churchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, the Hospital of St John the Baptist was run by a Master (normally a
monkA monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
or other religious figure) and a small community of brothers and sisters (other members of the church) who cared for the people who came to them for help. Three further beds at the hospital were also set aside for other poor or infirm people who were passing through on the road either to London or to Oxford.
The earliest known Master was Brother Gilbert who, in 1236, wrote to
Pope Gregory IXPope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...
in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
asking for permission to establish a chapel dedicated to
St John the BaptistJohn the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
at the hospital. This permission was granted by Papal decree in 1239 and the chapel built shortly after. It is not known whether the hospital took on the name of St John the Baptist at this time, or whether it had already received that dedication.
The hospital continued to run until the
Dissolution of the MonasteriesThe Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
in the mid 16th century when all property belonging to the
CatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
church was seized by
King Henry VIIIHenry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
. Officially the property of the
KingA monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
from that point in history, the hospital struggled to survive and eventually closed in 1548. The last recorded Master was Charles Chalfont, who ran the hospital from 1541 to 1548.
The school
In 1550 the buildings of the hospital were acquired by the
mayorIn many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
and burgesses of the town who wished to establish a
schoolA school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
. The school took in boys by subscription and trained them in academic studies such as reading, writing, arithmetic and the classics. Most if not all of the boys who attended the school would have then gone on to
universityA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, probably at Oxford. In 1562 the school received a
Royal charterA royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
from
Queen ElizabethElizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
. From that point on the school was (and still is) known as the
Royal Grammar SchoolSee Royal Grammar School for the other schools with the name RGS.The Royal Grammar School High Wycombe is a selective grammar school situated in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. As a state school it does not charge fees for students to attend, but they must pass an entrance exam...
.
The school operated in the old hospital until 1883 when funds were found for a new building. This was constructed just to the north of the old hospital, and the ancient building was finally demolished. In 1915 the school was then moved from this location altogether to its current location on Amersham Hill.
National Monument
Part of the original hospital building was pulled down in 1767 to make way for the widening of the main road so that it could be established as a
turnpikeTurnpike trusts in the United Kingdom were bodies set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls for maintaining the principal highways in Britain from the 17th but especially during the 18th and 19th centuries...
. The south wall of the hall was taken down at this time, and the hall shortened from 16 metres to about 12 metres. At the time of demolition most of the remaining buildings were pulled down, but some parts of the building were left standing. This includes the north wall and five columns of the hall with four
archAn arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...
es showing typical 12th century decoration and the north chapel wall with two half
latticeLatticework is a framework consisting of a criss-crossed pattern of strips of building material, typically wood or metal. The design is created by crossing the strips to form a network...
windows from the 13th–14th centuries. These
ruinsRuins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...
still remain today.
At the end of the 19th century the ruins left from the original demolition were strengthened using
brickA brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
buttressA buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...
es; in the early 20th century the columns and both walls were given stronger
foundationsA foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
of
cementIn the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...
.
In 1993 the ruins were declared an English national monument by
English HeritageEnglish Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
. Today they are well looked after and are lit up at night making them a local landmark.