CITY OF DURHAM 



no doubt originally raised a convenient height 

 above the floor of the Lavatory. 



The GREAT KITCHEN or MONASTERY 

 KITCHEN adjoined the frater on the south- 

 west. It is now attached to the Deanery by a 

 modern passage built against the south side of the 

 frater sub-vault, and is the only early monastic 

 kitchen in England still in regular use." It 

 communicated originally by a doorway and 

 passage on the north-east side with one of the 

 rooms under the Loft, from which food was 

 carried up to the frater, or to the Loft itself. 

 A doorway on the east side (now the external 

 entrance) may have originally communicated 

 with the prior's lodgings, and another doorway 

 on the west, now blocked, opened to the 



larders, or store-rooms, behind the fireplaces 

 in the south-east and south-west angles in the 

 thickness of the waUing.^^ About 1752 Dean 

 Cowper put two ' gothick windows ' in the 

 kitchen on the south side, and these still afford 

 the principal means of hghting."'- Externally 

 the kitchen has angle buttresses and finishes 

 with an embattled parapet, with a series of 

 gabled roofs over the vault abutting on the 

 louvre. The flanking structures on the east 

 side have been modernised with larder below 

 and bedrooms above. The Treasurer's chequer 

 was a ' little stone building ' between the kitchen 

 and the Deanery, erected before 1371.^^ 



The GREAT DORTER or DORMITORY 

 occupied the whole of the upper floor of the 



cellarer's chequer, which adjoined it on that west range, the south end of which overlapped 

 '^' ' ' •' '■ 1.1-1] • . the frater some 20 ft. The early 13th-century 



SUB-VAULT OF THE DORTER is a good 

 example of the work of the period and remains 

 substantially unaltered. It is about 194 ft. 

 long and 39 ft. wide internally, and is vaulted in 

 twelve bays of two spans, divided by a central 

 row of circular pillars with moulded capitals 

 and bases. Each bay is thus covered by two 

 plain quadripartite compartments, about 15 ft. 

 in height to the crown, with pointed transverse 



side. This building was later absorbed into 

 one of the canons' houses and was pulled down 

 in 1849.** 



The kitchen is a semi-detached building, 

 generally described as octagonal, but built in 

 reality on a square plan with fireplaces at the 

 angles, the arches of which support an octagonal 

 superstructure and vaulted roof, the smoke 

 from the fireplaces being conveyed through flues 

 to a central louvre. The bursar's roUs for the 



period 1366-71 set out the cost of making 'the and wall ribs. There are half-round responds, 



new kitchen,' but whether it took the place of 

 one on the same site can only be conjectured. 

 The main structure at least appears to have been 

 completed in Fossor's time, but it was not 

 finished in its present form till the episcopate 

 of Langley (1406-37), who contributed largely 

 to the work.'* Internally the octagon is 

 36 ft. 8 in. in diameter and is covered with a 

 vault consisting of eight semicircular ribs, each 

 extending over three of its sides, the space left 



similar in detail to the piers, against the walls. 

 The floor is five steps below that of the cloister 

 alley. The sub-vault was originally divided into 

 a treasury (in the bay next the church), the 

 common house,** a passage from the cloister 

 to the infirmary, while the four southern bays 

 contained the great cellar or buttery with en- 

 trances at one end from the infirmary passage 

 and at the other from the cellarer's checker and 

 the kitchen buildings. There was a window in 



within their intersection (14 ft. in diameter) each bay on the west, but none of the original 



forming the lantern. The ribs are chamfered 

 and spring from moulded corbels in the angles 

 high up in the walls ; the wall ribs are sharply 

 pointed. The openings of the louvre were not 

 filled with glass till 1507."'' The six sides, other 

 than the east and west doorways, have each a 

 chimney, one of which (on the north-east) was 

 used as a curing-room. The principal fireplaces 

 were north and south, but the former is now 

 modernised. The other sides show remains of 

 fireplaces of different kinds, and there are small 



out to a depth of 8 in. It rests upon two stones 

 forming the trough and projecting about 13 in. beyond 

 it. 



" G. W. Kitchin, The Deanery, Durh. 37. 



'* It is shown on Carter's plan (1801) and consisted 

 of two chambers, each covered by a barrel vault 

 running east and west. 



'• Greenwell, Durh. Caih. 104, quoting Hist. 

 Dunelm. Script. Tres (Surtees Soc), 146. 



•0 Kitchin, op. cit. 42, quoting Durh. Acct. Rolls 

 (Surtees See), 105. 



openings remain, all the existing windows being 

 modern. Of these divisions only the treasury** 

 remains, being still separated from the rest by a 

 thick wall. It is entered from the cloister by a 

 pointed doorway with a single continuous order, 

 probably a 15th-century insertion, in which are 

 still the ' strong door and two locks ' mentioned 



'^The cellarer's roU of 1481 mentions the flesh 

 larder, the fish larder, the store-house and the slaughter 

 house. The latter was probably east of the kitchen. 



'* A window on the north side, mutilated and 

 blocked, can be seen from one of the cellars under the 

 Librarian's room ; Fowler's notes in Rites, 274, 



•3 Kitchin, Deanery, Durh. 46. 



** It is not clear how many bays were occupied by 

 the Common House. The two bays next to the 

 Treasury appear to have been the Song School of 

 Rites, 'a convenient room for the instructor of the 

 boys for the use of the quire,' and probably the next 

 four bays were the Common House. 



•* ' A strong howse called the Treasure Howse where 

 all the tresure of the house did lie ' ; Rites, 84. 



129 



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