THE GROUND-PLAN OF BURTON ABBEY. 249 
an octagonal building, as at Westminster. The chapter 
house was the place where the monks met daily, and all 
the public business of the monastery was transacted, and all 
offences against discipline were dealt with. 
Mr. Robert Thornewill tells me that the building was 
62 feet long, and that burials were met with in it. The 
place of the burials of the earlier Abbots I have already 
stated was here. 
Next to the chapter house door we find a round headed 
Norman doorway, this was the entrance to the 
PARLOUR, 
a place for talking, silence being observed in the cloister. 
This was often a passage, and is mentioned in the Rites 
‘‘the Parloure Doure, where through the Monncks was caried 
to be buried,” and again, ‘‘the Parler Dor, as thei go through 
into the Senturie Garth.” Shaw shows in his plan 
(plate I, fig. 2,) three chambers, but, as I shall mention 
further on, this must be taken for the upper floor, yet, as 
walls in an upper floor generally imply walls in the lower, 
I think there may have been room for a door, before we 
come to the angle of wall, at foot of the dorter stair, but 
I am told none was met with in the excavations; which 
would lead into the sub-vault of the dorter: this was gen- 
erally a long vaulted room, having down the centre a row 
of columns, and divided into various apartments, the use 
for which must remain matter for conjecture, until a sys- 
tematic exploration of their remains be undertaken. Most 
probably first would come the common house, described in 
the Rites of Durham (where it occupied three bays of the 
vault) ‘‘ The house being to this end, to have a fyre keapt 
in yt all wynter, for the Monnckes to cume and warme them 
at, being allowed no fyre but that onley * * * ” the other 
bays may have been for storages, here may also have been 
the buttery. We now come to the 
SOUTH WALK. 
