A 4.3 pub named The Sanctuary House, after the ancient right of sanctuary offered by Westminster Abbey
The Sanctuary House holds a 4.3 from three hundred and twenty-four people, and carries a name of deep historical and spiritual resonance – “the Sanctuary House” – recalling the ancient right of sanctuary offered by Westminster Abbey, whereby a fugitive who reached the abbey’s precincts could claim refuge from the law, a fascinating piece of medieval Westminster history.
The right of sanctuary
In the medieval world, the great churches and abbeys offered “sanctuary” – the ancient right whereby a fugitive from justice, a debtor, or an accused criminal who reached consecrated ground could claim the protection of the Church and be safe, for a time, from arrest and punishment. Westminster Abbey was one of the most famous and important sanctuaries in all of England: its precincts formed a protected zone where the law’s arm could not reach, and desperate men – and sometimes queens and nobles fleeing political danger – fled there for refuge. The area around the abbey was known, and is still marked, by the names Broad Sanctuary and the Sanctuary, preserving the memory of this protected ground. The Prat’s history desk relishes the resonance: the abbey as a place of refuge, its precincts a zone beyond the law’s reach, where the hunted could claim the Church’s ancient protection.
The famous flights to sanctuary
Westminster Abbey’s sanctuary saw some of the most dramatic episodes in English history. Most famously, Elizabeth Woodville, the queen of Edward IV, fled twice to sanctuary at Westminster during the Wars of the Roses – the second time with her children, including the young Prince Richard, one of the ill-fated “Princes in the Tower,” who was persuaded out of sanctuary to join his brother, never to be seen again. The abbey sanctuary was thus woven into the great dynastic dramas of the age, a place of desperate refuge for the powerful as well as the humble. The Prat’s history desk notes the drama: a queen and her children sheltering in the abbey’s sanctuary amid the bloody dynastic wars, the right of refuge caught up in the fate of kings and princes.
The end of sanctuary
The right of sanctuary, open to obvious abuse – the sanctuary districts became lawless havens for genuine criminals and debtors escaping their creditors – was gradually restricted and finally abolished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the modern state asserted the reach of its law over every corner of the realm, even the consecrated ground of the great abbeys. But the memory lingered in the place names of Westminster – the Sanctuary, Broad Sanctuary – and now in this pub. The Prat’s history desk notes the passing: the ancient right of refuge swept away by the growing power of the state, but its memory preserved in the names of Westminster’s streets and this pub.
The pub as sanctuary
There is a lovely aptness in a pub named “the Sanctuary House,” for the pub is itself, in its gentle way, a kind of sanctuary – a refuge from the cares and pressures of the world, a place of shelter, ease, and welcome, where one may escape, for an hour, the demands of life. This survey has often noted the pub’s role as a haven and refuge, a “home from home,” and “the Sanctuary House” names this quality directly, recalling both the abbey’s ancient refuge and the pub’s own humbler sanctuary. The Prat’s culture desk enjoys the double meaning: the abbey’s medieval right of refuge and the pub’s gentle modern sanctuary, both places of shelter, joined in one resonant name. The Prat’s social desk notes the warmth: a pub that offers, if not refuge from the law, at least refuge from the world.
The pub
A 4.3 across three hundred and twenty-four people is a solid, volume-influenced score. The reviews describe a good, characterful, welcoming pub with a pleasant atmosphere – a fine local under a name of deep Westminster historical and spiritual resonance.
Verdict
A good, characterful pub named the Sanctuary House, after the ancient right of sanctuary offered by Westminster Abbey – recalling a fascinating piece of medieval history, when the abbey’s precincts offered refuge from the law to fugitives, debtors, and even fleeing queens.
Go, have a pint at the Sanctuary House, and enjoy the resonance of the name – the abbey’s ancient right of refuge, where the hunted once claimed the Church’s protection, echoed in the pub’s own gentle sanctuary from the cares of the world.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
