A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



room, and from them a wing runs west, enclosing a 

 small garden and lawn on the north of the hall.' 



South of the infirmary, and lying parallel with it, 

 is an interesting building consisting of a 13th-century 

 hall with a 1 2th-century kitchen and offices adjoining 

 it on the west. The hall is on a larger scale than 

 that to the north-east of the infirmary chapel, being 

 44 ft. long by 24 ft. 6 in. wide inside, and has at the 

 north-west a doorway with moulded arch and en- 

 gaged shafts, formerly leading into the screens. Just 

 east of the doorw.iy is an inserted chimney-breast and 

 four-centred fireplace of the late 16th century, and 

 beyond it two tall two-light windows with quatrefoils 

 in the heads and nook shafts in the jambs, of original 

 date. Both have embattled transoms at half height, 

 inserted in the I 5 th century. What windows may have 

 been in the other walls have been destroyed by later 

 alterations, but there are clasping buttresses at all four 

 angles, and on each of the north and south sides were 

 two narrow chamfered buttresses spaced evenly 

 between the angle buttresses. One of these on the 

 north side h.as been destroyed by the inserted chimney- 

 breast, but the other three still exist. The building 

 is now divided into two stories, a staircase being 

 added at the east end, and has been otherwise much 

 altered and repaired. In its west wall are two arched 

 doorways opening to the kitchen buildings, and it 

 seems that there were never more than two, instead 

 of the normal triple arrangement for the buttery, 

 pantry, and kitchen passage. 



The kitchen dates from the last quarter of the izth 

 century, and has a tall round-arched fireplace in its 

 north wall, and on the south side a wide arch of two 

 orders springing from carved half-capitals. No other 

 features appear to be ancient except a doorway some 

 height from the ground level, just west of the entrance 

 doorway of the hall, which has a round-arched head, 

 now serving as a window. 



Some distance west of the kitchen is the south-west 

 angle of an aisled hall of somewhat later date, perhaps 

 e. 1200. The respond of the south arcade, with a 

 half-round shaft and moulded bell capital, remains, 

 with a few stones of a chamfered arch springing from 

 it, and there are small blocked round-headed doorways 

 in the west and south walls adjoining. The respond 

 is not in line with the arch on the south of the 

 kitchen, but there is probably some connexion between 

 the two buildings. 



With the exception of some minor buildings to be 

 noticed later, the group just described are all that 

 remain near the site of the infirmary. The earlier 

 infirmary built by William of Waterville before 1175 

 had a cloister, but there seems to be no provision for 

 one in connexion with the present building. It is 

 to be noted that Abbot Acharius 1200-10 gave a 

 part of his vineyard, which lay to the east of the 

 church, to the infirmary, because its inmates had no 

 place to take the air — so that it seems that the 12th- 

 century cloister was not large. 



The hall and kitchen to the south of the infirmary 

 hall and the smaller hall at the north-east of the 

 chapel are both older than the main block of buildings, 

 and must have been built while the older infirmary 

 was standing. There is no documentary evidence of 



their original purpose, but it is possible that the smaller 

 hall may have been the infirmarer's lodging belonging 

 to the old infirmar)', and that the kitchen may have 

 served the infirmary, while the hall east of it belonged 

 to a guest-house or hostry (hostillaria) for visitors of 

 the better class, who would be served from the infirmary 

 kitchen, where the fare was of a more varied kind than 

 that in the monks' kitchen. There was a hostry chapel 

 in connexion with this group of buildings, which h.ad 

 an altar of All Saints, but nothing more is known 

 of it. 



South-west of the hostry buildings is one of the 

 prebendal houses, which contains the remains of a 

 small square 15th-century building of two stories, of 

 which the old roof-timbers may yet be seen. East of 

 this, in a wall dividing the garden of this house from 

 another, is the lower part of the east wall of a small 

 1 4th-century building, with a blocked central window- 

 opening. Too little remains of these two buildings to 

 make it possible to suggest their former use. On the 

 line of the boundary wall of the precinct, to the south 

 of the buildings just noted, is a long 14th-century 

 building, having two tall trefoiled windows with 

 transoms and a doorway of two moulded orders about 

 the middle of its north side. It is now cut up into 

 several tenements, and modern windows and door- 

 ways have been inserted, but it was probably an out- 

 building, perhaps a stable, belonging to the hostry. 



The prior's chapel mentioned in the Custumal — 

 its dedication was in honour of St. Dionysius, St. 

 Rusticus, and St. Eleutherius — was, from the evidence 

 of the procession route, somewhere in this quarter, 

 and was probably a distinct building from the hostry 

 chapel, though this, in view of the frequent use of the 

 prior's quarters as guest-chambers, is by no means 

 certain. 



The first notice of the monks' frater (refectorium) 

 is that of its commencement by Ernulf, 1107-14, 

 and its completion just before the fire of 1116. It 

 was replaced in the time of Abbot Walter of Bury St. 

 Edmunds, 1233-45, ^y the building whose ruins 

 are still to be seen, consisting of the lower parts of 

 the east and south walls, with the entrance doorway 

 from the cloister. It was left to decay after the sup- 

 pression, and in the report of a commission ' sent by 

 Archbishop Abbot, 23 October, 1629, it is said to be 

 ' now decayed for 50 years and upwards.' The west 

 gable was then standing in a ruinous condition, and 

 was ordered to be taken down to the bottom of the 

 windows, and not lower, and a drawing of 1721 ' 

 shows it in this condition. 



Its internal measurements may have been about 

 145 ft. by 37 ft. 6 in. and the figures of the survey of 

 1539, 54yds. by 14yds. being external, agree in the 

 matter of width, but the excess of 17 feet in the 

 length clearly points to the fact that another build- 

 ing, at the west end of the frater, was included in the 

 measurement. This building was in line with the 

 Abbot's Hall on the west side of the cloister, and 

 formed part of the grant to the bishop on the estab- 

 lishment of the bishopric in 1541. The report of 

 1629 speaks of the great stairs of the old hall called 

 the Monks' Hall, evidently in this position ; they may 

 have led to a loft at the west of the frater, as at 



' In the i+th century there was a 

 garden (horrus) belonging to the infirmary; 

 most probably it lay to the east of the 

 chapel. 



' Reg. Abbot, iii, loi. 

 » Add. MS. 32467, fol. 205. From 

 this drawing it seems that the west wall 



452 



of the frater was not in line with that of 

 the cloister, but further west, as at West- 

 minster. 



