This elegant, curling, wrought-iron hinge-ornament once provided support for a twelfth-century door in the south transept that opened into a 'slype' or covered passageway connected to the medieval Chapter House. The straight part in the centre connected to a hinge, while the curling tendrils extended horizontally across the vertical wooden planks of the door to help keep the door together and strengthen it, while also decorating it in a flamboyant way.

St. Albans Abbey is one of Britain's most beautiful and historic cathedrals.The door and the slype, howevever, were casualties of some controversial repairs to the cathedral carried out in the 1880s under Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe. Grimthorpe was a gifted mathematician, lawyer and inventor who designed the mechanism for the clock in the Houses of Parliament that sounds Big Ben. Popular opinion at the time, however, suggests Grimthorpe's talents did not extend to architectural restoration. A history of the abbey published in 1903 listed the south transept among 'the havoc wrought by Lord Grimthorpe'. The entire southern wall of the south transept was replaced to Grimthorpe's design and a new doorway was built 'which seems now chiefly used as a passage for carrying in coke for the stoves in the transept.'

When the ancient door was removed the delicate upper hinge was saved and presented to the V&A in 1889.