The #Refectory# (or Prater), "which was begun in 1246, on the site of the Norman one destroyed to make room for it, was a great hall over 130 feet long and nearly 40 feet wide. It was reached by a broad flight of steps, beginning in the cloister and passing up through the frater door. The steps did not open directly into the frater, but ended in a vestibule screened off from the rest of the hall, and covered by a loft or gallery. Into this vestibule would also open the service doors from the kitchen and buttery.... The west end and nearly all the north side have been pulled down to the ground, but the south wall, being common to the cloister, remains up to the height of its window sills. The east end is also standing to the same height.... Much of the stonework of the east and south walls is reddened by the fire that destroyed the frater in 1540." [Illustation: ST. MARY'S GATE. KING EDWARD'S GATE. Drawn by F. S. Walker, F.R.I.B.A.] The #Little Cloisters# consist of an irregular quadrangle, with sides of varying length. The garth wall is a good specimen of Perpendicular work. There are five openings on each side. In the times of the Great Rebellion the little cloisters were partly unroofed. The western alley is part of an interesting fifteenth-century house which is built over it, and the south alley has a lean-to roof. The other two alleys, which are now unroofed, were formerly covered by part of a large building which was built over them, and called Babylon. All traces of Babylon have now disappeared. In the north wall of the cloister three stone coffins have been built in with the masonry. Mr Hope thinks it quite possible that this small garth was used as the herbarium or herb garden. "On the west side of the little cloister, and partly over-riding it, is a medieval house of several dates, from the thirteenth century to the suppression, and later. Owing, however, to modern partitions and fittings, and repeated alterations, it is somewhat difficult to trace its architectural history. The oldest part of it consists of a vaulted undercroft of Early English work extending north and south beneath the western part of the house. It consists of three bays, of which two now form the kitchen of the house, and the third or northernmost is walled off to form a passage outside. More work of the same period adjoins this on the west, including a good doorway with moulded head. This doorway was clearly, as now, an external one. The undercroft stops short about twelve feet from the frater wall (or wide enough to leave a cart-way), and there is nothing to shew that it extended further east. Looking at its position so near the great cellar, the kitchen, and other offices, it is very probable that the original upper floor was the cellarer's checker, or counting-house, and the undercroft a place for stores."