York Guides

The conduit house was built against the south wall of the infirmary passage, a little to the west of the infirmary hall, in the fourteenth century. It is a room of irregular shape, once paved with small stone flags. In the centre of the floor there was a space surrounded by a stone gutter, and the nineteenth-century excavations found a lead pipe leading from here under the floor towards the south. This pipe probably brought fresh water from the springs on Kitchen Bank down to a tank standing within the gutter, where a head of water could be built up and piped to the various parts of the abbey.

Late in the Middle Ages the room served other purposes and its western doorway was converted into a hatch. The early excavations uncovered quantities of kitchen refuse, broken pottery and ashes that had been shovelled through this hatch into the yard on the west, where a supply of coal was also found.

The misericord projects at an angle from the south wall of the conduit house. It is a ground-floor hall, 58 by 22 ft, and it may first have been built in the thirteenth century as a reredorter for the infirmary, for a row of seven latrine shafts exists along its south side, discharging into the tunnels.

Under Abbot Darnton, probably between 1489 and 1495, it was extensively remodelled and the latrine shafts were blocked. At this time it was being used as the misericord or dining hall where meat prepared in the infirmary kitchen was allowed to be eaten not only by the sick but also, from the fourteenth century, by the convent in general. The building is much ruined, but there are indications that it had a service passage at the east end with doorways leading south and east for kitchen service, and a dais remains at the west end, its step once faced with stones bearing a design of small quatrefoils. There are remains of a stone bench against the north wall.

Other buildings once existed south of the misericord, but they are completely ruined except for a fragment of their south wall with a small fireplace. Beyond them there was a walled yard against the south-west angle of the infirmary hall.