English MonasteriesThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
English Monasteries
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
Monasteries -- England
§ 60. Lofty chapter-houses, like those of Gloucester and Bristol,
are not found in the Cistercian plan, in which the dorter was almost
invariably continued as far as the church and was provided with an
annexe above the eastern projection of the chapter-house. Furness is a
case in which the chapter-house, as already stated, had a vestibule;
but here the vestibule is not a passage through the whole width of the
eastern range, but a porch, above which a gallery was carried from
the dorter to the night-stair. The roof of the chapter-house itself
was somewhat higher, but there was the usual room on the upper floor.
The chapter-house was usually an oblong, as at Fountains, or, as at
Furness, a nearly square building, divided into alleys, generally three
in number, by rows of columns which supported vaulting. The entrance,
in most cases, followed the customary plan of a central doorway with
a window on either side. Vaulted chapter-houses may still be seen at
Buildwas, Kirkstall and Valle Crucis. That at Buildwas is of the normal
plan, vaulted in three alleys. At Kirkstall the western part is vaulted
in four alleys and has two wide archways from the cloister, while the
eastern part beyond the range, rebuilt at the close of the thirteenth
century, is vaulted in two alleys. The Valle Crucis chapter-house is a
fourteenth-century rebuilding with the usual three alleys, but has a
thick west wall, in which, on the south side of the central entrance,
is the day-stair to the dorter, while on the north side is a vaulted
book-cupboard, entered from the interior of the building. At Ford,
where the chapter-house is now used as a private chapel, it is a
vaulted building of the twelfth century, undivided by columns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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