York Guides

The lay-brothers' day-stairs rise to the south as an open flight of steps opposite the eleventh bay, and lead to a landing over the vault of the cellarer's office. This landing was roofed, and from it another flight of steps rises eastwards to the lay-brothers' dormitory.

The lay-brothers' dormitory occupies the whole of the first floor of the west range. It is the largest of its kind in existence, its floor area of 12,600 sq ft indicating the need to accommodate great numbers of lay-brethren in the twelfth century. It lacks only its roof and parts of its east wall opposite the kitchen. The present floor is modern, designed to waterproof the vault below.

Like the ground floor of the west range, the southern nine bays of the dormitory are later in date than the rest. But whereas the windows in the later part of the ground floor are pointed, the dormitory windows are round-headed throughout, for the builders of the southern part had it in mind that their work would be seen internally as a single space with the northern half, and they sacrificed modernity of detail to uniformity of effect.

The dormitory is not accessible to visitors at present.

The lay-brothers' reredorter

The lay-brothers' reredorter projects westwards from the south end of their dormitory. It was built at about the same time as the northern half of the west range, and so existed as a detached stone building before the dormitory was extended to link up with it.

The reredorter is built over the river, and its lower storey is divided by a spine wall. Its south wall has a row of nine arches to take latrines that were reached from the south bank of the river, outside the building, and were later enclosed by a pentise connected to the lay-brothers' infirmary. The first floor, reached from the dormitory, probably had a wooden partition on top of the spine wall, with the latrine seats placed back to back against it in two rows over the two channels into which the river below is divided.