MAINSBRIDGE HUNDRED 



times, and a doorway inserted opening to a passage 

 which ran along the west side of the eastern range. 



The chapter-house has three two-light windows on 

 the east, each with a sixfoiled opening in the head 

 under a pointed inclosing arch, all being rebated for 

 wooden frames. It was vaulted in three spans and 

 three bays, being 1 9 ft. square, and had stone benches 

 round the walls on which the vaulting shafts rested ; 

 these with their capitals and bases were of Purbeck 

 marble, the vault-ribs being of simple chamfered 

 section. The vault has fallen, and the benches and 

 shafts have been cut away on the north and south 

 sides, but on the east there are seats in the sills of 

 the windows. Towards the cloister there are the 

 usual three openings, beautiful moulded arches with 

 quatrefoiled piers and Purbeck marble capitals and 

 nook-shafts, the central opening having been the door- 

 way, and the other two being originally filled with 

 low walls, carrying open arcades of two arches with 

 central marble shafts. These have now been removed, 

 the low wall remaining only in the southern opening. 

 In the south wall of the west bay of the chapter-house 

 are traces of an original doorway opening to the 

 parlour, and to the west of it, partly destroying it, 

 was a sixteenth-century doorway as in the vestry. 



The parlour has a plain round-headed barrel vault 

 without ribs, and pointed chamfered archways at east 

 and west, that on the east having been fitted with a 

 door, opening to a wooden pentise from which a 

 branch ran north-east towards the isolated thirteenth- 

 century building described below as the visiting abbot's 

 lodging. It is probable that between it and the 

 parlour lay the infirmary, approached by this passage, 

 but nothing of it is now above ground. It is to be 

 noted that there is a masonry joint between the east 

 wall of the parlour and its north and south walls, the 

 east wall being built first. 



The novices' room, vaulted in five bays of two spans, 

 joined the parlour on the south, and was entered 

 from the cloister at the north-west by a small door- 

 way which has lost the moulded stonework of its head. 

 The door close by, leading to the parlour, is a post- 

 suppression insertion. The vault, which has fallen, 

 had chamfered ribs, and round-headed wall cells as in 

 the vestry ; it sprang from moulded corbels which 

 remain in the walls. The room was lighted on the 

 east by four lancet windows, of which that in the 

 south bay remains, but the other three have been 

 replaced by wider windows of two trefoiled lights 

 with a transom, c. 1330, all having internal rebates 

 for frames. The wall at the north-east angle has 

 been rebuilt, and contains a sixteenth-century win- 

 dow and fireplace, but part of the rear arch of a 

 small thirteenth-century window remains ; it would 

 have opened under the pentise which was set against 

 the east face of the wall. At the south-east angle 

 is a thirteenth-century doorway, and part of a later 

 doorway to the north of it ; there are traces of a 

 third doorway, probably original, partly destroyed by 

 the inserted fourteenth-century window in the next 

 bay. The southern half of this wall seems to have 

 been masked by a sixteenth-century staircase, now 

 destroyed. In the west wall of the novices' room 

 are two fireplaces, one in the southern bay, with a 

 doorway close to it in tte south-west angle, and the 

 other in the next bay. It was the larger of the two 

 and had a stone hood, but is now destroyed. A 

 little distance to the north was a thirteenth-century 



HOUND WITH 

 NETLEY 



cupboard or recess, nearly obliterated by the making 

 of a later cupboard, so that only two stones of its 

 head remain. Below the line of vault corbels ran a 

 band of painted decoration, which still shows faintly. 

 It is probable that this room was divided up by 

 wooden partitions, the south bay and perhaps the 

 north being cut off in this way. The dorter extended 

 on the first floor from the south transept to the 

 south end of the novices' room, and, besides its night 

 stair already mentioned, was reached by a day stair 

 from the south-east angle of the cloister, both the 

 lower and upper doorways of this stair being still 

 in existence. It was lighted on both sides by rows 

 of small square-headed windows, a good many of 

 which are still to be seen blocked with masonry, 

 having been replaced after the Suppression by wider 

 mullioned openings. Part of the cornice remains on 

 the east side, with plain rounded corbels under a 

 flat soffit, and the steep pitch of the roof shows on 

 the transept wall. The east ends of the vestry and 

 chapter-house, projecting beyond the line of the east 

 wall of the dorter, formed separate rooms, the former 

 having a barrel vault and a roof gabled from north to 

 south, and the latter a lean-to roof in continuation 

 of that of the dorter ; the east wall of the dorter 

 ran right up to the transept, being carried on arches 

 over the chapter-house and vestry. The room over 

 the vestry has two small square-headed windows on the 

 east, one of them a later though mediaeval insertion, 

 and a doorway on the south towards the narrow room 

 over the east end of the chapter-house. Its position 

 and its stone vault suggest that it may have been a 

 treasury or strong-room. The narrow room to which 

 it opens had two small square-headed windows, which 

 were reset higher in the wall after the Suppression ; it 

 can hardly have been other than a passage. 



At the south end of the dorter, running in a north- 

 easterly direction, probably to suit the line of the 

 stream which flushed its drain, is the rere dorter, on 

 the same level as the dorter, with the latrines on the 

 south side, lighted by small square-headed loops. Its 

 east window is gone, and the north wall is rebuilt in 

 red brick. It overlapped the south end of the dorter 

 for half its length only, and in the space to the west 

 of it was a one-story pent-roofed building, through 

 the south side of which the drain is continued, which 

 was a small kitchen, or perhaps a wood-shed. It 

 opened on the north to the novices' room, and at the 

 north-east to the ground floor of the rere dorter ; on 

 the right hand of each doorway is a small hatch, with 

 one side widely splayed towards the kitchen, through 

 which imall articles could be passed. 



The room under the rere dorter is vaulted in four 

 bays, the vault still standing, though its ribs have 

 fallen. It is in a very shaky condition, covered with 

 earth and bushes, and not proof against heavy rain, 

 and is likely to fall at any moment. The room has a 

 widely splayed east window of two lights with a 

 quatrefoil over, and has been lighted on the north by 

 two single lancets, between which is a fine hooded 

 fireplace. The eastern of the two lancets has been 

 widened, but is now blocked, and below the second 

 lancet is a plain chamfered doorway. The fireplace 

 is part of the original work, and has lamp brackets on 

 either side of the hood, and a fine back of herring- 

 bone brickwork. On the south side of the room, 

 masking the pit of the drain, are four wide recesses, 

 their back walls now in part broken away, and in the 



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