Although it is likely that both men and women - serfs - were recruited for the strenuous manual labour of building, the only named local woman involved in the construction of the chapel was Margaret Colynson who worked in the rope and twine trade. According to Saltmarsh;

 

'She supplied ropes for the cart, the walls and the robinets, or hoisting tackle, and bottomed the great sieves which were used for sifting lime. Probably she was in business before as well as during her widowhood, for when she supplied ropes to the College in 1507-8 she was described in the Mundum Book as uxor Colynson, though in later years as ‘relicta Colynson’.

(Saltmarsh 2015: 81).

 

There are other records of women whose work sustained the chapel in college accounts. Between 1750 and 1761, the college bought wax candles from Hannah Jones, who was a wax chandler at 'ye Star and Garter in ye Poultry', and also sold oil and pickles. Cloth for various chapel purposes was bought from Eliza Hasswood in the 1740s and delivered by Lily Taylor who later seemed to have managed to convince 'Lily's man' to do the deliveries instead!

 

In the 1750s, Elizabeth Godfrey at the Hand Ring & Crown in Norris St., St James's, Haymarket, supplied and engraved gold and silver for the college and chapel. Below are images of her receipt and crest, which were featured in the college archive of the month in November 2009.

 

In 1964, Joyce Conwy Evans designed the altar frontal to harmonise with the Rubens. She claimed that her work was influenced by her early work as a theatre designer and the octagons in the pattern echo the fan vaulting of the chapel. The embroidery for the frontal was done by Elisabeth Geddes and Audrey Chaytor Morris.

 

Our archival research continues into the local women whose work built and sustained the chapel.