CITY OF DURHAM 



of the shields is Prior Castell's badge of the 

 winged heart pierced by a sword, and others have 

 the arms of the See and of the prior and chapter. 

 The work is apparently of Castell's time,^ and 

 may be as late as the second decade of the i6th 

 century.'' The carved bosses include the sacred 

 monogram, the Agnus Dei, the cross of thorns, 

 Tudor rose (repeated), chained hart, fleur-de- 

 lys, three rabbits nibbling at fruit, and other 

 subjects. Below the ceiling is an embattled 

 cornice with deep-cut flowing floral pattern on 

 the underside. The bedrooms over the Library 

 and King's Room are without interest, but the 

 chamfered wall pieces of an old roof, apparently 

 of early 16th-century date, remain on both sides. 

 Probably the whole of this floor was originally 

 one room, but it is divided into four, with a 

 passage on the west side connecting the rooms 

 over the chapel with a staircase on the north side 

 of the house. To the west of this staircase are 

 three bedrooms opening from one another over 

 the rooms north of the drawing-room. All the 

 internal arrangements and the windows on this 

 floor are 18th-century or later, though the outer 

 walls are old. The basement story of the block 

 north of the chapel has been modernised, and 

 contains a laundry and coal cellar with a passage 

 between. From this a trap door opens to a 

 large stone-built chamber, or cesspool, 12 ft. 

 deep, divided by a semicircular arch into two 

 bays, with a flanking arch over each. This 

 chamber, which is 8 ft. 6 in. by 8 ft., has a round- 

 headed opening, now blocked, on the east side, 

 and may have been the cesspool connected with 

 the early buildings on the east side of the cloister, 

 though it is some 30 ft. east of the old rere- 

 dorter. It was perhaps used later in connexion 

 with the prior's privy chamber. 



The Great Hall of the prior's lodging, as 

 already stated, was formed from the old dorter 

 by lengthening it at the north end up to the 

 chapter house, so as to include the dorter stairs 

 and landing. Since the days of the deans the 

 Great Hall has been divided horizontally by the 

 insertion of a floor over rather more than half its 

 length, providing bedrooms in the upper part, 

 and vertically by the erection of a partition on 

 the ground floor, and has thus lost all its ancient 

 characteristics. The side walls belong to the 

 Norman building, and on the west, overlooking 

 the cloister, is still a round-headed window, now 

 blocked, but no other features of this period 

 survive. The modern doorway on the east side, 

 which opens on to a lobby between the Great 

 Hall and the northern apartments, is, however, 



* Whether this is its first position has been ques- 

 tioned. Dean Kitchin says : ' It shows signs of a 

 juncture across the middle ; it has been suggested 

 that it was originally the roofing of two rooms trans- 

 ferred here at some later time ' (Kitchin, op. cit. 62). 



* Castell wainscotted the frater in 15 18. 



in the same position as the original doorway to 

 the rere-dorter. Above this is a blocked square- 

 headed three-light window of I5ih-century date, 

 and there is another, blocked in its lower part, 

 on the west side, the upper portion of which 

 lights one of the bedrooms. The hood mould of 

 another opening still remains on this side above a 

 modern sash window. Prior Fossor placed a 

 window at the south end of the hall, but the 

 existing window in that position is a restoration 

 of a four-light square-headed opening wliich 

 replaced the earlier one in 1476,^ and the other 

 windows and the oak roof were probably erected 

 a few years later.^ It is almost certain that the 

 Great Hall was re-roofed and otherwise altered 

 about this time, assuming then the aspect it 

 retained until the Dissolution, but there are no 

 records of actual work done. As then recon- 

 structed, the Hall must have been a very noble 

 apartment, lighted by great windows on either 

 side at its north end, some 13 ft. above the floor, 

 and by a large window in the south end. In 

 length it was about 75 ft. and in width 24 ft., 

 with a height of about 40 ft., but the floor was 

 raised four steps some 10 ft. from the south end 

 so as to clear the vault of the undercroft. The 

 15th-century roof still remains over the whole of 

 this space, but can be seen only from the inner 

 hall at the south end, the i emainder being hidden 

 by the flat plaster ceilings of the bedrooms. The 

 north end of the Great Hall, now the dining hall 

 of the Deanery (42 ft. by 24 ft.), has a plaster 

 ceiling imitating oak, and is lighted by three 

 modern windows on the east side. The south 

 end, now the Inner Hall, is panelled all round 

 with two tiers of late 15th or early i6th century 

 oak traceried panelling, and the partition divid- 

 ing it from the dining hall has three tiers of 

 similar panelling with plaster above. Dean 

 Kitchin was of opinion that aU this panelling 

 was the wainscot from the monks' frater re- 

 erected here by Dean Sudbury when he con- 

 verted the frater into the chapter library,' and if 

 so it dates from 15 18. The tracery of the 

 wainscot was from time to time replaced by 

 sham work in painted putty or plaster, but has 

 since been restored in oak.* Modern doorways 

 on the west side of the inner hall open to the 

 Chapter Library and to the passage to the 

 kitchen. The Great Hall had a buttery at- 

 tached to it, but its position cannot be accurately 

 located ; it may have been to the south-west of 

 the Hall, approximately where the modern 

 butler's pantry, built by Dean Waddington over 

 the passage to the cloister, now stands. 



^ Kitchin, op. cit. 61, quoting Durh. Acct. Rolls 

 (Surtees Soc), iii, 646. 



* There were charges for ' divers windows ' in 

 1482 and 1483 : ibid. 



' Kitchin, op. cit. 64- 



8 Ibid. 48. 



135 



