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The monks' dormitory was on the top floor of the east
range, a long room with a high pitched roof (the mark of
which can still be seen on the transept wall) which ran
the length of the building. This was entered by two
staircases: the day stair went down into the cloister in
the south-east corner; the night stair led into the
south transept of the church to allow the monks to get
easily from bed to choir at night. Initially the
dormitory was an open hall, with the monks' beds placed
along the walls, one under each of the small, slit-like
windows. During the fourteenth century, when views of
the necessity of sleeping together for the common life
changed, the dormitory at Netley would, as at other
houses, have been divided into panelled chambers to give
every monk his own private room, each leading off a
central corridor. The treasury, a tiny vaulted room, was
at the north end of the dormitory, probably placed there
so the brothers could guard it at night.
Another large building lies crosswise at the south
end of the east range. The lower level consists of a
vaulted hall. It is equipped with a grand thirteenth
century hooded fireplace and has its own garderobe. It
is not clear what this chamber was used for, but it may
have been the monastic infirmary—if so it was a most
unusual, perhaps unique, arrangement. Normally in a
medieval Cistercian monastery an infirmary with its own
kitchens, chapel and ancillary buildings would have been
located east of the main buildings around a second,
smaller cloister, but at Netley these seem to be absent.
So far, excavations have not revealed whether Netley had
a separate infirmary complex.
The upper floor of this building was the reredorter
or latrine. It is a large room with a door conveniently
leading into the monks' dormitory. The stalls were in
the south wall and the effluent dropped into an
underground stream which runs in a vaulted passage
underneath the building.
To the west of the reredorter block was the buttery,
a room where the monks' wine (some of it direct from the
king's cellars at Southampton) and beer were stored.
Excavations in this area have revealed fragmentary
remains which may be part of a separate kitchen for the
richer meat diet allowed to the residents of the
infirmary.
South range - The Mistery of Netley Abbey
The Mistery of Netley Abbey - Index |
