Vicar's Close

Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest ...

I would like to live in a little house like these, on a little street, with the church at the end, so easy to slip in and out of for visits to the Blessed Sacrament during the day and night.  Downstairs could be my studio, upstairs my living quarters.  The entry a tiny little garden.  Ever since I was little, I have liked little places, little hideaways.

These little houses remind me of Carthusian and Camaldolese hermitages, although they were built for the chantry priests of the Cathedral, beginning in 1369.  Imagine if priests could live like this today, how good they all might be.

Origins (from Wikipedia):

The Close owes its origins to a grant of land and buildings by Walter de Hulle, a canon of the cathedral, for the purpose of accommodating thirteen chantry priests. Bishop Jocelin styled these priests the Vicars Choral, their duty being to chant divine service eight times a day. Previously they had lived throughout the town, and Bishop Ralph resolved to incorporate them and provide subsistence for the future. The Vicars Choral were assigned annuities from his lands and tenements in Congresbury and Wookey, an annual fee from the vicarage of Chew, and endowed them with lands obtained from the Feoffees of Walter de Hulle. The residences he built became known as the College, or Close of the Vicars. - Read more here.