The chapter house was built in around 1140, this is the place where the monks and the prior met each morning to discuss priory business and to issue punishments for disobedience. Inside the guidebook is a lovely reconstruction of how the inside may have looked in the fourteenth century. All the arcading and carving on the walls are painting in the same bright colours of a stained glass window.
Much of the elaborate arcading and detailed stone carving typical of Cluniac buildings can still be seen on its interior walls. Lining the walls were stone benches where the monks sat. Towards the back on the right, a blocked doorway can be seen, which once led to a treasury under the stairs. The lintel has an unusual carving of a grotesque head – an example of Anglo-Scandinavian sculpture. *
*From the English Heritage guidebook.
Looks like a wonderfull location … superb ancient walls with magnificent details in it.
It is a lovely location you would get some great photos there
What beautiful stonework. They don’t make buildings like this any more today.
They surely don’t Ellee, which is so sad…
Marvellous. We can only imagine what it would have looked like had Henry VIII not dissolved it!
I have a little dilemma about wishing to see it as it was and enjoying it as it remains now.
I know I would like to see both. But just visiting the site you can feel and imagine the magnificence of the building in it’s day and still feel the tranquillity of the place as it stands now.
It is one of my favourite places to visit for calm and tranquillity.
Never
)) trust people who use superlatives.
Not even if they are arty people who talk in superlatives?
I would gladly bring my tent, and spend a week between those walls. I’ve never seen such an inspiring, serene and protective building. Thank you, Cherie, for the presentation.
I can just imagine you pitching your tent in there and the place is so calm and relaxing
Totally awesome and unbelievable, Cherie. I’ve never seen arched carvings like that, apparently for decoration only.
They are lovely aren’t they?