§ 52.
The dorter generally communicated with
the transept of the church by the night-stair, of
which a splendid example remains at Hexham, the
head of the stair being divided from the dorter by
a lobby or a room over the parlour. Even where, as
at Haughmond, the dorter did not extend over the
chapter-house, there was sometimes a passage or
gallery which led from it to the transept. There was
always a day-stair to the dorter from the cloister,
the ordinary position for which, as at Westminster,
was between the chapter-house or its vestibule and
the treasury or the common house; and when, as in
examples already cited, the chapter-house entirely
cut off the dorter from the church, this stair would
be used for the night-services as well as for ordinary
access in the daytime. In such cases, the entrance
to the church was through the eastern processional
doorway, but at Canterbury the monks, on their way
from the dorter to the night-service, passed through
a gallery on the first floor of the eastern or infirmary
cloister to the doorway in the north-eastern transept.
In smaller monasteries there was often some
difficulty in fitting the day-stair into the plan of the
eastern range. In the Premonstratensian house of
St Radegund the day-stair was a straight flight of
steps from the lobby between the dorter and the
church wall, at the other end of which was a turret
containing the night-stair. At Lacock there was
a single stair next the church, parallel with the east
walk and dividing it from the large sacristy which
filled the space between the church and chapter-house.
