A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



the king himselfe myght verie well have lyne in 

 yt.' Some walling of 12th-century date remains 

 in the house built on the site on its north and 

 west sides and in the interior, but the only 

 apartment that has survived is a vaulted base- 

 ment, now used as a kitchen. The vault is 

 in three bays of two spans, supported by two 

 pillars with moulded capitals.*" 



The PRIOR'S LODGING, now the 

 DEANERT, was built eastward of and incor- 

 porating the early dorter at the south end of the 

 east range. Assuming that the dorter was aban- 

 doned before or about 1140, it is reasonable to 

 suppose that this part of the monastic buildings 

 would then, or soon after, be handed over to 

 the prior, and that he constructed various 

 chambers to the east of it. To these a chapel 

 was attached in the 13th century in the south- 

 east corner, but in the existing buildings nothing 

 between the chapel and the old dorter is earher 

 than the 14th century, the intervening rooms 

 having presumably been rebuilt at that period, 

 and they have been altered more than once 

 since. The many references in the Rolls of the 

 Convent to work done in the prior's lodging are 

 tantalisingly vague and Rius has little to 

 say about this part of the monastery. The 

 earliest rolls do not begin until 1278, at which 

 time there was glass in the prior's rooms, and 

 Graystanes mentions the prior's chamber twenty 

 years earlier. The checker of the prior's chaplain 

 was ' over the stairs as you go up to the Dean's 

 hall . . . and his chamber was next to the 

 prior's chamber,''^ but neither room can be 

 identified.*- Of the date of the erection of the 

 chapel there is no record, and its attribution to 

 Prior Melsonby (1233-44) i^ conjectural. Fossor 

 did a great deal of work in the monastery build- 

 ings, but it is not specifically stated that ' the 

 two separate chambers, namely, the high cham- 

 ber and the low one,' were in the prior's lodging, 

 though probably they were. In Wessington's 

 time a sum of £^i() was expended ' for con- 

 struction and repairs of various chambers belong- 

 ing to the Prior,' but no details of the work done 

 are given. The Deanery is said to have been 

 ' very much improved ' by Dean Comber 

 (1691-99) who ' built a new apartment to it,'*^ 

 but this cannot be located, and no adequate 

 record has been kept even of the 18th-century 

 reconstructions and alterations. 



The detail of the chapel is very simple and in 

 striking contrast to Melsonby's work in the Nine 

 Altars ; though apparently early in the pointed 

 style, it is possible the work may be as late as 

 the middle of the 13th century. The chapel 



•o Boyle, Guide to Durh. 363. 



•* Rites, loi. This was in the l6th century. 



•^ Kitchin, The Deanery, Durh. 33. 



<« Ibid. 73. 



was internally about 50 ft. long from west to east 

 by about 16 ft. wide, over a vaulted basement, 

 and stands in front of the face of the main 

 building, which it overlaps at the east end about 

 20 ft. The upper part, or chapel proper, has 

 been divided up and turned to domestic uses, 

 but the sub-vault remains substantially un- 

 altered. In 1914-15 it was fitted up as a chapel 

 by Dean Henson and later used by the women 

 students of St. Mary's College, and the windows 

 were opened out. It is of four bays, each covered 

 by a single quadripartite vault, with pointed 

 wall-ribs and transverse arches, springing from 

 half-round responds against the side walls, with 

 moulded capitals and bases. The height of the 

 vault is about 11 ft. and the ribs are chamfered. 

 This apartment (' the chamber under the vault ') 

 was lighted by four narrow windows with wide 

 internal splays on the south side, one at the 

 east end of the north wall, and one at the east 

 end, and the entrance is at the west end from 

 the garden. The windows were made square- 

 headed after the Dissolution and so remain. 

 The west doorway has a pointed continuous 

 chamfered arch with hood mould, and there is 

 also a door at the west end of the north wall 

 from the lower floor of the house. The entrances 

 to the chapel above were in the same relative 

 positions, the internal one directly from the 

 prior's solar {camera superior) and the other 

 from the outside, the method of access to which 

 is no longer apparent. It was probably reached 

 by a wooden stairway, but all traces of this or 

 any other means of approach have long since 

 disappeared. The doorway is of two orders with 

 hood-mould, the outer order moulded on jamb 

 shafts. Above in the west wall are two tall 

 lancets, now blocked, and at the east end two 

 similar windows. The eastern windows are 

 deeply recessed, with an outer order carried on 

 jamb shafts with moulded capitals and bases, and 

 are widely spaced, the wall between being now 

 rebuilt as a chimney in a way which makes it 

 difficult to determine whether there was originally 

 a middle opening. On the south side all the 

 original windows of the chapel have disappeared, 

 five large square-headed sash windows having 

 been inserted on each floor in the i8th century, 

 but in the overlapping north wall are the 

 remains of two grouped lancets, placed lower 

 than those at the east end, which suggest that 

 originally the windows on the south may have 

 been in pairs. Externally the chapel has wide 

 flat clasping buttresses at the angles, and there 

 have been buttresses on the south side and at 

 the ends. The conversion of the chapel into 

 rooms took place in the i8th century, when a 

 floor was inserted and two sitting-rooms with 

 a smaller room between were formed on the 

 lower floor and four smaller rooms on the floor 

 above. These are all lighted from the south 



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