Leper Chapel, Cambridge

About

The Leper Chapel, also known as the Leper Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, is a chapel on the east side of Cambridge, England, off Newmarket Road close to the railway crossing at Barnwell Junction. It dates from about 1125. The chapel was part of the buildings of a leper hospital that stood a little beyond the outskirts of the city on the road to Bury St Edmunds.

Parts of the east wall are original, but most of the rest of the chapel was rebuilt in the 13th century. It still retains many Romanesque features. In 1199 the chapel was given royal dispensation by King John to hold a three-day fair in order to raise money to support the lepers.

Starting in 1211, the fair took place around the Feast of the Holy Cross (14 September) on Stourbridge Common which lies a little way behind the chapel and continues down to the River Cam. Stourbridge fair grew to become the largest Medieval fair in Europe and raised so much money that the post of priest at the Leper Chapel became one of the most lucrative jobs in the English church. The job was also a sinecure, since the leper hospital had ceased to admit new lepers in 1279, and what few lepers remained were moved to a new colony near Ely.

The chapel...