By Harold Brakspear, F.8.A. 



229 



Fig. 7. 



Loop at east end of 

 rere-dorter subvault. 



the other third contains the pit of the garderobes 

 through which ran the main drain of the abbey. 

 The chamber is entered by a segmental-headed 

 doorway from the warming-house and another 

 doorway further east in , the same wall from the 

 court between the eastern range and the infirmary. 

 At either end was a tall square-headed loop, 9J 

 feet high, and 7 \ inches wide. The western one 

 has been partly destroyed in the 16th century by 

 the insertion of a shorter and wider window in 

 the lower part and the upper part walled up. The 

 inside sill appears to have had window seats 

 similar to the warming-house. The eastern 

 loop 1 is perfect and the sill had no window seats. 

 Over the drain in the north-east corner was a 

 garderobe within a segmental-headed recess. The 

 chamber is now divided into two parts by a cross 

 wall, erected to carry the east wall of the ex- 

 tended dorter above, and there is a plain arched 

 doorway in its north end. 

 The external angles of the building have flat pilaster buttresses. 

 What use this basement was put to is most uncertain, but part, 

 probably, was a store for fuel to supply the warming-house fire. 



The rere-dorter would originally have been entered by a doorway 

 in its south wall at the end of the centre passage of the dorter, and 

 the whole north wall would have been occupied by garderobes over 

 the drain. " And every seate and particion was of wainscott, close 

 of either syde, verie decent, so that one of them could not see one 

 another, when they weare in that place." 2 



In the 14th century the dorter, as before described, was continued 

 northward, incorporating the western part of the rere-dorter, thus 

 cutting off more than half the accommodation it formerly contained. 

 It is difficult to say if this reduced number of garderobes was 



1 At one time a transom has been inserted in this at half height, but 

 subsequently removed. 



2 Rites of Durham, xliii.. p. 72. 



