A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



by the sash windows akeady named, and the 

 lower rooms have fireplaces with carved mantels 

 in the end walls. The date of these alterations 

 is not known, but they may have been the work 

 of Dean Cowper (1746-74). The chapel fabric 

 now has a straight parapet and flat-pitched leaded 

 roof ; the original roof has been destroyed and 

 all traces of the chapel internally have been 

 obhterated. 



The main part of the building between the 

 chapel and the great hall consisted of the prior's 

 solar, or camera superior, on the principal floor, 

 with the camera inferior, 01 servants' hall, under 

 it. The former was a lofty apartment about 

 62 ft. long from west to east and 22 ft. in width. 

 It now forms the drawing-room of the Deanery, 

 but its east end, which overlaps the chapel some 

 16 ft., has been partitioned off as a lobby. The 

 drawing-room is thus 46 ft. long, and in its 

 present aspect dates from the i8th century and 

 later, but its walls are ancient. The south or 

 outer wall is of 14th-century date, probably 

 Prior Fossor's reconstruction of a former build- 

 ing erected against the old rere-dorter, the south 

 wall of which, v\ith its pit, was retained, and still 

 forms the inner wall of the drawing-room and 

 hall below. Whatever the original appearance of 

 the prior's camera, it seems to have been a good 

 deal altered late in the 15th century, or early in 

 the 1 6th, when a fine flat-pitched, open-tim- 

 bered roof of oak was erected and lofty windows 

 with vertical tracery inserted, some indications of 

 which stiU remain outside.** This roof is still 

 in position, but hidden by a later plaster ceiling, 

 except at the east end, where it is visible over the 

 lobby. In the south wall, near its east end, is a 

 vice turret by which direct access was obtained 

 from the servants' haU to the prior's camera and 

 thence to the roof. The turret projects externally 

 as a half octagon and terminates above the para- 

 pet with a short pyramidal roof. It is of 14th- 

 century date, and the doorway in the lower room 

 has a continuous moulded shouldered arch : the 

 opening in the upper room is now covered by 

 panelling, but can still be used. The present 

 four great square-headed sash windows were put 

 in by Dean Cowper about 1748-49,* but the 

 coved plaster ceiling appears to be subsequent to 

 Cowper's time (1746-74), as a panel with his 

 arms is now above it at the west end of the 

 room.** The fireplace is modern. 



** Kitchin, op. cit. 50. 



•^ He is said at this time to have ' pulled down an old 

 part of the Deanery, next the garden facing the south,' 

 and to have ' rebuilt the same in a handsome manner,' 

 but Dean Kitchin points out that this refers to the 

 staircase leading from the front door to the outer hall ; 

 op. cit. 71. 



•• The panel is figured in Kitchin, op. cit. 52. It 

 has the arms of Cowper impaling Townshend. Dean 

 Spencer Cowper married Lady Dorothy Townshend. 



The camera inferior has been modernised, and 

 except for the doorway to the vice is architectu- 

 rally uninteresting. Partition walls now divide it 

 into three, and the windows have been enlarged 

 and made into sashes. It has a flat ceiling. On 

 this floor the double wall of the old rere-dorter, 

 enclosing the pit of the latrines, stands clear its 

 full width from the wall of the old dorter range, 

 with a passage between ; on the floor above it has 

 been cut through at the ends, perhaps in the 17th 

 century, to form a passage-way through the 

 house. The site of the rere-dorter is now 

 occupied by rooms which in their present 

 aspect are of comparatively modern date, but 

 probably took shape in the 15th century. They 

 consist of a morning room (28 ft. by 20 ft.), and a 

 smaller room opening from it at the east end, but 

 are without architectural interest.*' 



Immediately north of the chapel was the minor 

 camera of the prior,** now the Dean's hbrary, 

 and to the north of this again, and originally 

 communicating with it, a room called ' King 

 James's Room,'** but probably in the first in- 

 stance the prior's sleeping chamber. Both these 

 rooms appear to have been originally of 14th- 

 century date, and their outer walls, including a 

 buttress on the east side and part of a window on 

 the north,^ are still largely of that period, but the 

 outer wall of the library was rebuUt in its present 

 form, with a bay window, early in the 19th cen- 

 tury, when an external stone staircase to the 

 garden was erected.^ The library (28 ft. by 

 22 ft.) has an oak ceiling of four bays, probably of 

 late isth-century date, the main beams carried on 

 stone corbels and shaped wall pieces, each bay 

 having three panelled compartments with carved 

 bosses at the intersection of the ribs. The fire- 

 place is modern. 



The celling of King James's Room is of 

 panelled oak, with a series of carved bosses and 

 shields at the intersections of the ribs. On one 



" These rooms were altered and improved by Dean 

 Cowper about 1748-9; Kitchin, op. cit. 71. They 

 may have been part of the work done in Wessington's 

 time. 



•* The chapel was described in 1343 as ' juxta et 

 prope minorem cameram prioris.' Richard de Bury 

 (Surtees Soc. ciix), 167, quoted by Kitchin, op. cit. 54. 



•* From King James VI of Scotland having slept 

 there in April 1603 on his way to London. 



'^ In the basement story ; it is the top of a pointed 

 window of two cinquefoiled lights with an elongated 

 trefoil in the head. 



* A drawing of the east front of the Deanery by 

 Robert Surtees, c. 1810 (reproduced in Kitchin's 

 Deanery, 55), shows a kind of large entrance porch in 

 the angle of the chapel and library and a modern 

 gabled addition immediately north of the buttress. 

 These were pulled down when the east wall of the 

 Hbrary was rebuilt. The library is shown in the 

 sketch as lighted by two four-centred windows with 

 square labels. 



134 



