Originally built around 1380, the first iteration of Ashburnham House was only one room wide. The wall that separates the Gibbon Room from the room at the front of the house was once an external wall, as can be seen from its width.
Initially Ashburnham House was occupied by Westminster Abbey’s prior, but it was handed over to the King during the dissolution of the monasteries. On January 16, 1540 the Abbot and his twenty-four monks signed a deed to give the Abbey, its precincts and all its possessions as a gift to the King. The Abbot responsible for this, Abbot Boston, had been put into office for this purpose by Thomas Cromwell. With the house now the property of the crown, it was let to Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chancellor, in 1596. He remodelled the house and widened the footprint by adding the Hastings and Gibbon Rooms. The book cupboard that sits in the room is known as the Sheraton Cupboard and houses school textbooks, grammars and books given as prizes, with volumes dating back to the sixteenth century.
