The Dominican order set up a friary in Canterbury in 1237, using funds granted by Henry III. The friary was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538.
Blackfriars Street runs west from King Street up to what used to be the friars' refectory (dining hall); it then dog-legs to travel north running parallel (upstream) with the River Stour, to Mill Lane.
The refectory is still there. Between 1640 and 1912 it was an Anabaptist meeting house which later was used by the Unitarians. In 1920 it was used for storage and in 1982 it was bought for, you guessed it, the King's School to be an art gallery. According to Doel & Doel (2018, 24) the refectory, built 1260,has "a projection out of its river-facing wall where a pulpit was located, from which one of the friars would read scriptural passages at mealtimes.”
The guest house of the friary was on the other bank, connected to the refectory by a bridge which no longer exists. The guest house became a private house in 1780 and subsequently the Beerling Hall.
A door in a wall leading to the hospitium of the Dominican friary
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