Guest House At Buckfast Abbey

The guest house at Buckfast Abbey is an early 14th-century building with later alterations. It is constructed of local stone rubble, with a slate roof, some sections of which are asbestos, and other sections are natural slates laid in diminishing courses with gabled ends. The stacks have stone rubble or rendered shafts. Originally, the building had an entrance on the east side, at the southeast corner of the main open hall. This hall was lit by two large windows on the east side, and presumably two similar windows on the west side. The hall included a domestic piscina (a stone basin used for washing) in the south wall, and two service doorways leading to service rooms and chambers above. The upper end of the building likely contained dormitories on two floors. Following the Dissolution of the monasteries, parts of the building were taken down, and it was narrowed when the west wall was replaced. Subsequently, it was used as farm buildings and for modest domestic accommodation. Around 1800, the building was converted into a row of cottages, and further alterations were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The east front of the building has two storeys and a 4:1-window arrangement. The left-hand block has a separately-roofed section featuring a pointed archway, the original entrance to the hall, and a large opening on the first floor. The central block, now a bookshop, has three ground-floor two-light casement windows, a late 19th/early 20th-century cross passage entrance on the left, and a modern doorway to the bookshop on the right. Four first-floor three-light casement windows are also present. The right-hand block has one first-floor three-light casement and one ground-floor two-light casement. The east wall has several casement windows. The service end of the building is preserved without a roof, and its architectural features are detailed in a report by Brown. Interior details are also documented in Brown's report. This building is a significant medieval survival, a rare example of a monastic building of this type. It is considered an exceptional discovery, as little is known about buildings on the fringes of medieval monastic sites.