§ 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.