ยง 55.
The kitchen was, as has been said, external
to the cloister, though necessarily in close connexion
with the frater. In some of the greater houses, as at
Canterbury, Durham and Glastonbury, it was a detached
building, which was rebuilt in the fourteenth
century on a square plan, with fireplaces in the
angles, the arches of which supported an octagonal
superstructure and vaulted roof, the smoke being
conveyed through flues to a central louvre. A passage
connected the kitchen with the frater and screens,
and at Durham food was served through an opening
in the frater wall called the dresser window. The
great kitchens of Durham and Glastonbury are still
entire. In the majority of cases, the kitchen was
probably a rectangular building; and sometimes, as
at Lacock, it stood west of the frater, in the angle
between it and the western range. Here, where the
frater was upon an upper floor, the lobby at the foot
of the stair was the entrance to the kitchen, and the
fireplaces were in the outer walls.