#Sopwell Nunnery.#--There are a few remains of Sopwell Nunnery in a field near the river Ver, to the south-east of the city. They may be reached by taking the first turning to the right hand after crossing the bridge on the way from the city down Holywell Hill. This nunnery was founded by Geoffrey of Gorham, sixteenth Abbot, about the middle of the twelfth century. Two women, pious and ascetic, had taken up their abode on this spot in a hut which they built for themselves, and Geoffrey determined to build them a more permanent dwelling, and make them the nucleus of a religious house. They accepted the Benedictine Rule, and gradually the nunnery increased in size, and many ladies of high birth took the veil here. One of the abbesses wrote the "Boke of St. Albans," not, as might be imagined, an account of the saint or of the religious house, but a treatise on hawking, hunting, and fishing. It was printed in 1483 at the St. Albans printing press. When the nunnery was dissolved, Sir Richard Lee, to whom the Abbey lands were granted, turned it into a dwelling-house for himself. The ruins consist of ivy-clad walls of brick and flint, pierced by square-headed windows, but containing few interesting features.
The name is said to have been derived from the fact that the two women mentioned above soaked or sopped their dry bread in water drawn from the Holy Well or some well in the immediate neighbourhood of their hut.
#St. Peter's Church.#--This church, standing at no great distance from the cathedral, may be reached by taking the footway called the Cloisters, crossing High Street, passing between the Clock Tower and the picturesque and ancient inn, the Fleur de Lys, and through the quaint street of gabled houses known as French Row, into St. Peter's Street.
The church was originally built about 948 A.D., by Ulsinus, the sixth Abbot of St. Albans, but none of his work remains. It seems to have been almost entirely rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century, and most of it is Perpendicular in character. It has a central tower rebuilt about a hundred years ago, and until that time had a transept. There is a clerestory on either side of the nave. The chancel and the west end with its circular window show signs of Lord Grimthorpe's style of restoration. The tower contains a fine peal of ten bells. In the windows of the south aisle is some richly coloured modern Belgian glass by Capronnier; in the windows of the north aisle are some fragments of fourteenth or fifteenth century glass, including the arms of Edmund, the fifth son of Edward III., from whom in the male line Edward IV. was descended, though he also traced his descent and his claim to the throne from Lionel, the third son, through his daughter Philippa.