[Illustration: THE CLOISTER, SHOWING THE CARRELS OF THE MONKS. _Photochrom Co. Ltd., Photo._] The present #Deanery# was originally the Abbot's lodging, in which royal persons, high ecclesiastics, and nobles were entertained. When, however, in the fourteenth century, a new Abbot's lodging was built on the site where the episcopal palace now stands, the Abbot's old lodging was assigned to the Prior. The Deanery (which, however, is not shown to visitors), as it now stands, "consists of two main blocks, built on two sides of a court--the one to the south, in the angle formed by the cloister and the church; the other to the west, with the court between it and the cloister." The southern block, which contained the private apartments of the Abbot, consists of three large Norman chambers, one above the other, with their original windows enriched within and without with zig-zag mouldings. Each chamber has also in the north-east corner an inserted or altered doorway into a garde-robe tower (shown in Carter's plan, 1807), but now destroyed; and the two lowest chambers have their southern corners crossed by stone arches, moulded or covered with zig-zag ornaments. All these chambers are subdivided by partitions into smaller rooms. Mr. Hope says: "The ground storey is entered from a vaulted lobby or antechamber, now modernized and converted into a porch. The first floor has a similar antechamber, as had originally also the second floor, but this has been altered. These antechambers are all of early thirteenth-century date, with a good deal of excellent work remaining about the windows. "Between the church and the rooms just described is a building of two storeys. The ground storey consists of a vaulted passage, already described as the outer parlour. It is on a lower level than the cloister, which is reached from it by a flight of steps. Over it is a lofty room, also vaulted, which was the abbot's chapel. It is now entered by an awkward skew passage from the first-floor antechamber. "Both the chapel and outer parlour were once 9 feet longer, but were shortened, and their west ends rebuilt with the old masonry, at the same time that, I have reason to believe, the west front of the church was rebuilt and also curtailed of a bay in the fifteenth century. The first floor of all this part of the house contained the abbot's private apartments, namely, his dining-room, bedroom, solar, and chapel. The second floor was devoted to his own special guests, while the ground storey contained a reception-room, and probably accommodation for one or two servants.