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Monument Types

• PRIVY HOUSE (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• UNDERCROFT (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)

Full description

Monastic latrine block.

At the west end of the dorter range (WCM 96379), discharging into the river. The reredorter itself occupied the top floor of this three-storey building. The surviving ruins were interpreted by Brakspear as a basically two phase building, the south wall and drain belonging to 'the reredorter built shortly after the dorter was finished (late 11th century) and the rest is of the later years of the twelfth century'. The north wall of the original (late 11thC) building was in line with the north wall of the dorter, and the end wall projected further out into the river; on the south side was a two storeyed aisle. The lowest storey of the main block and the south aisle is a subvault or undercroft; the floor above was c.1 metre below the level of the dorter range undercroft and was attributed in the Parliamentary Survey to part of the infirmary complex. Brakspear thought both lower floors would have been used as part of the infirmary, citing other two-storey infirmaries where the hall was placed over the sleeping place (see WCM 96381).

At basement level the reredorter consists of two parallel undercrofts or subvaults, the northern one wider than the southern, the two separated by a wall c.3m (9ft) thick. The northern subvault is vaulted, five bays long by two bays wide, with round columns and moulded capitals. The two western bays have been destroyed and much of the subvault has been backfilled, probably after 1671 when it was ordered that the 'vault under the late infirmary be filled up or otherwise secured' unless the incumbents of stalls 5 or 8 had any use for it. The north wall is pierced by a series of window openings giving light from a 'sunk area' outside. The east wall is earlier than the others, being part of the dorter range, constructed of alternate broad and shallow masonry courses like the rest of that building (WCM 96379); 'the toothing of the original north wall of the reredorter subvault clearly shows to the southward of the present north wall'. The southern reredorter subvault is one bay wide. Its south wall is built off an open arcade, later filled in with windows (14thC); Brakspear suggested that the southern subvault had been used as part of the infirmary cloister. Parts of the vaulting in the third and fourth bays fell down and were repaired in 1912. The westernmost bay may have contained the monastic prison. Above the southern subvault was a space under the lean-to roof above, but this was raised a storey probably in the 13th century; a 14th-century door gave access to it from the dorter subvault to the east.

A length of the south wall of the reredorter survives to its full height and, said Brakspear, 'clearly shows the arrangement of the building'. The drain, in a semicircular channel, with an unusually steep fall of 21 degrees, was flanked to the south by the outer wall of the reredorter and to the north by the inner wall of the drain. The drain begins above the level of the dorter undercroft floor and must have been provided with water from the roofs, rather than a piped supply. Over the drain was a row of privies, each 3ft wide with a wooden partition each side and a small round-headed window in the outer wall; six of these windows survive out of 23. The building was raised another storey in the 14th century {1}.

For further details of the canonical housing that developed on the site, see Willis 1863 {2}. The reredorter remains were effectively sandwiched between the house of stall 8, to the north, and stall 9, to the south. As Valentine Green had recognised, the south wall of no 8 and the north wall of no.9 were both ancient sandstone structures, the north wall of the reredorter and the south (drain) wall respectively {3}.

Phil Barker's 1997 Cathedral Research Design refers to three vaulted cellars to the reredorter, 'each of five bays with the monastic great drain running down to the river between the two northern ones'. (?) The southern cellar, being accessible, was the site of an excavation in 1972 (WCM 100268) by Cubberley: 'He found a very large sandstone wall running diagonally across the building, well below the medieval floor level'. Barker suggested this wall (WCM was of probable Saxon or Roman date 'perhaps part of an early quay' {4}.

For an annotated plan of prebendal housing occupying the reredorter site, see Knowles 1995, fig.7 {5}.

Brakspear's plan of the dorter and reredorter in his 1916 article shows that his excavations of 1912 included a small trench excavated against the outside of the north wall of the reredorter.

scheduling

Cross reference to: 96376, cloisters

Sources and further reading

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