Prior'S Kitchen (Dean And Chapter Library)

DURHAM AND FRAMWELLGATE THE COLLEGE NZ 2742 SW (North side)

14/98 Prior's Kitchen (Dean 6/5/52 and Chapter Library)

GV I

Kitchen, now muniment room. 1366-74 by John Lewyn. Coursed squared sandstone with plinth and ashlar dressings. Octagonal with corner projections making square plan at ground level. Lantern has stone-flagged roof. South elevation has gabled angle buttresses flanking paired chamfered lancets; corner bays have clusped lancet at left, inserted small square window at right; sloped stone coping to these projections. Top battlemented parapet. Sundial on right buttress. Lantern has high hipped roof with gablets and gabled dormers.

Interior: coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings; later brick insertions; stone-vaulted roof with 16 ribs springing in parallel pairs from each side, forming a star with 2 ribs springing from each corner; the central intersections form the base of the lantern, reconstructed in render and glass c.1970. Each wall has a relieving arch; ovens on north, south-west and south-east walls have brick voussoirs, that on north-west has brick segmental head. Round-headed doorways in north-east wall (2), and beside fire in north-west and south-west, the latter giving access to a small room in which the rear of an C18 bread oven is seen; the iron door of the oven is in the rear of the medieval fire. 2-centred arched openings in east wall, and similar but blind openings in west. The corner rooms make use of space within the square-cornered additions to the octagonal plan which serve as buttresses to the vault, the structures being rubble-filled over the rooms. It is thought that the design of the vault is either original or derived from mosques as in Cordoba, Spain.

Source: W. Page V.C.H. 1928 reprint 1968, 129.

Listing NGR: NZ2730242069