Ruins of Chapter House and Vestibule of St Mary's Abbey

Ruins of Chapter House and Vestibule of St Mary's Abbey

This is a twelve-sided chapter house standing to full height but without a roof, built in the Decorated period. The structure is dominated by tall pointed arched windows to each side, with an entrance on the west. A pronounced sill band divides the elevation: above it is dressed Sutton stone continuing to the arch spandrels, while rubble stone appears above and below. Clasping buttresses of dressed stone are set at the angles. Each window opening is defined by two orders of chamfered mouldings beneath hoodmoulds. The outer order is supported on circular shafts with central shaft rings, ringed bases, and decorated capitals including stiff leaf forms, with square abaci (some shaft fragments are missing).

A moulded circular opening at low level pierces the east wall. The west entrance is a shallow pointed arched doorway with two orders of chamfered mouldings and an impost band featuring filleted roll moulding. It is flanked by single light windows in the same style. The north and south facing walls are supported by large buttresses.

Interior

The interior is circular, dominated by a central pier faced by four polygonal shafts with detached circular shafts between them, all carrying rings. The shafts have stiff-leaf capitals and ringed abaci supporting a cluster of moulded rib fragments on water-holding bases. Between each window are three clustered circular shafts on decorated corbels below the sill band, supporting the outer ends of moulded vault ribs. Dressed stone blocks below the corbels add strength. Small recesses in the lower rubble level likely supported benches or stalls.

Interior window openings match the external design with two orders of chamfered mouldings, though the bell capitals display varied decoration including stiff-leaf, foliage, scallops and fluting. The small opening at low level in the east wall is a splayed quatrefoil within a square moulded frame. The window above has fluted moulding to the outer arch order, suggesting it may have been the abbot's seat.

Vestibule

The chapter house has a vaulted entrance vestibule to its west, which also serves as the undercroft to a demolished dormitory. The vestibule is two bays deep from east to west and three bays deep from north to south, with a wider central bay. Quadripartite rib-vaults spring from corbels. The north and south sides feature wide pointed arches with chamfered dressings and flying buttresses against central octagonal piers.

The west entrance consists of a triple doorway of considerable ornament. The central pointed arch displays three orders of keeled roll mouldings springing from detached circular shafts with shaft rings, ringed bases, and scalloped or foliate bell capitals. Dog-tooth decoration ornaments the central order. Narrower shafts to the doorway jambs carry decorated bell capitals. The flanking doorways are similar but with two orders of shafts and roll mouldings. Large flying buttresses are built against the arch spandrels.

To the north is an earlier rubble wall with a segmental arched entrance in Norman style, showing three orders of roll mouldings on the exterior (west) side and a plain voussoir head to the interior. A wall continues south with a chamfered arched doorway, accompanied by a smaller doorway in the same style. Beyond the east side of this wall is a line of polygonal column bases that would have supported the dormitory above, continuing the vestibule undercroft.

Remains of the Abbey Church

Ruined remains of the former abbey church survive north of the chapter house, including parts of the south transept walls, the south walls of the presbytery and choir, and three pier bases. The largest base supported the southeast pier of the crossing: it has an irregular plan with a square wall stub to the west and polygonal faces to the east, north and south, with attached and detached circular shafts on ringed bases. The smaller bases, aligned along the south transept, formed the boundary to a chapel along its east side. They are square and set diagonally, with circular shafts on ringed bases at the angles and at mid-points between.

The south wall of the choir is a free-standing Decorated fragment containing two arches within a square-headed dressed stone panel. The doorway to the right, which led to the cloisters, has pronounced continuous mouldings. A blind recessed arch to the left features a trefoiled head. Trefoils in relief ornament the arch spandrels. An arch fragment springs from the west end of the wall without a dressed surround. On the north interior side is an attached shaft with ringed base and roll moulding running across the wall.

The south wall of the presbytery continues via the east and south sides of the transept, standing to considerable height with tall pointed arched windows containing plate tracery of two lancets and a quatrefoil. Hoodmoulds flank each window, with circular shafts against interior jambs (mostly missing). The interior side has full-height attached shafts between the windows. At the presbytery and transept angle is a cluster of triple shafts supporting moulded rib fragments. One window survives to the presbytery; beyond it the wall continues at lower level with the remains of a narrow doorway with two orders of mouldings. Exterior buttresses sit on chamfered plinths. Two windows in the transept east side light a raised-platform chapel. The south wall survives below sill band level and contains two recesses: a scalloped projecting piscina on the left within a square moulded frame, and an arched aumbry fragment on the right. The wall turns at right angles to join the chapter house to the south in an awkward arrangement, containing a doorway with a segmental head of narrow voussoirs leading into a triangular recess, above which is a partially blocked window.