roxburgh-1956-vol-2/-05_056

Transcription

No. 567 -- MELROSE PARISH -- No. 567

The dorter itself was lit on either side by a tier of low,
lintelled windows with splayed and rebated jambs ;
those facing W. were placed immediately over the
lean-to roof of the cloister alley. The weather-table
formed on the transept gable to protect the S. end
of the dorter roof has a flat top, but it does not follow
from this that the roof was flat-topped throughout its
length. Probably the greater part was ridged while
the S. end was dropped to a platform in order to clear
the circular window that lights the upper part of the
transept. The gable itself probably ended in a belfry.
The range on the N. side of the cloister is extremely
dilapidated. At its W. end are seen the foundations
of the kitchen, which was an oblong apartment
measuring 29 ft. by 19 ft. The kitchen was entered
from the alley on its S. side, and for privacy there was
a passage along its N. side as entrance to a Cistercian
kitchen and communication with the staff on duty
was restricted to those having business there. The
fireplace, now fragmentary, stood detached near the
E. end of the room. At the W. end the wall is still
sufficiently entire to show a serving-hatch com-
municating with the domus conversorum (infra). On
the E. of the kitchen was the frater. In the 12th-
century arrangement this stood parallel to the church,
and beyond it the primary warming-house abutted
on the E. range of the cloister ; but in the 13th
century Melrose, like other Cistercian houses, rebuilt
its frater on an axis running N. and S. and this
alteration, which is referred to more particularly
below, made possible a more convenient arrangement
of the whole N. range. Thus the day-stair to the
dorter was removed from the E. range (supra) to a
position at the E. end of the N. range. Between this
staircase and the new frater was placed the new
warming-house, the only apartment in addition to
the kitchen in which a fire was maintained. The W.
end of the primary frater, the area between the kitchen
and the new frater, was probably occupied by a
staircase leading to the frater proper, as this was on
the first floor of the new building ; the lower part
of the staircase may have served as a passage giving
access to such buildings as lay N. of the cloister
assemblage (infra).
The primary frater is represented mainly by the
bed of clay and rubble prepared for its foundations.
The 13th-century building that replaced it is not in
much better case except at the NE. corner, where the
lowest courses of the walls remain. But its founda-
tions are still fairly entire, and these show that the
13th-century frater stood upon a vaulted undercroft,
three bays in width and eight in length, entered from
the cloister on the S. The dimensions of the building
are about 119 ft. from N. to S. by 42 ft. 6 in. from
E. to W. over all. The side walls are buttressed, and
there are two intermediate buttresses on the N. gable.
In the fourth bay from the N. on the W, side a pro-
jecting base is provided to support the frater pulpit,
which was entered from the upper floor.
The W. range is rather less dilapidated than the
other two, but its chronology is even less explicit ;
the dating of any part, as given here or on the plan,
must consequently be regarded as tentative. The
existing remains are those of the undercroft or lower
floor. The arrangement of this floor has been normal,
an outer parlour through which the cloister was
entered being situated near the NW. corner of the
cloister with the conversi frater on its S. side, and
beyondthis another apartment separated from the
church by a cell ; while on the N. of the parlour there
was a cellar from the W. side of which the undercroft
of the conversi reredorter extended at right angles to
the range, roughly in alinement with the reredorter
of the choir-monks. The missing upper floor,
devoted to the dorter of the conversi, was reached by
a day-stair and a night-stair and also communicated
with the reredorter. At the S. end of the undercroft
the conversi cloister extended to the W., as at Tintern.
On its E. side an alley ran N. between the conversi
cloister and the W. side of the W. range-there was
no alley along the E. side of the range in the first
instance on account of the open lane (p. 266). The
foregoing arrangement dates from the 12th century
and much of the existing masonry seems to be of that
time ; but there is also abundant evidence of altera-
tion and extension, which will be described shortly.
The cell at the S. end of the range, adjoining the
church, is divided transversely by a stout wall. To
what use the W. division was put is unknown, but
the E. division must have housed the night-stair
leading from the conversi dorter to the conversi choir-
entrance. This stair may have been of wood. The
apartment immediately on the N. of the cell measures
24 ft. 6 in. by 30 ft. 6 in. and occupies the full width
of the range. This was probably either a cellar or
a buttery. Its outer walls and the W. end of the
partition on its N. side seem to date from the 12th
century, to which time may also be attributed the
one surviving jamb of a doorway on the W. as well
as both jambs of an opening to the E.-either a
doorway or, more probably, a low-set window. At a
later stage, probably to be dated to the second half
of the 13th century, four bays of rib-vaulting were
introduced and, finally, the apartment was divided
by a transverse partition into two almost equal cells,
a doorway opening to the E. being broken out within
the one to the S.
The conversi frater on the N. of the last measures
about 24 ft. 6 in. by 49 ft., and is mainly primary.
The principal entrance is from the alley on the W.
but, as at Culross Abbey,1 a second doorway gives
access from the outer parlour. Along the S. wall ran
a stone bench. Alteration is as obvious within the
frater as elsewhere. For example, in the E. wall there
is a recess, for a window or a fireplace, which is
clearly an insertion ; this alteration cannot be dated,
but it may be noted that in the cellarium of Rievaulx
fireplaces were introduced in the 14th and 15th

1 Inventory of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, No. 150.

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