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The infirmary was the part of the abbey where the sick and aged monks were housed and received treatment. It lay to the east of the other monastic buildings, insulated by them from the noise and bustle of the great court.

Although the abbey had an infirmary in was probably of timber and no remains of it s of the present vast group of buildings mostly Abbot John of Kent (1220-47), and in order t in the narrow valley he carried out a remarkably scheme, canalising the river into four parallel, over a distance of some 90 yards to provide a level platform on which to build.

The central feature of this group is the great infirmary hall. East of it, from north to south, lie a two-storeyed block and yards enclosing a kitchen. West of it lie a small conduit house, the misericord or dining hall of the infirm monks and other buildings now too extensively ruined to be identifiable. The group is linked to the cloister by a long passage.

The infirmary passage starts just south of the parlour and forms a gently inclined plane until it reaches the infirmary hall some 200 yards to the east. About halfway along, a branch passage leads northwards to the chapel of the Nine Altars. Only the lower walls of these passages remain and they show many alterations.

Although there would be timber passages from the early days of the monastery, their replacement in stone did not start until the second quarter of the thirteenth century. The first passage to be built in stone was L-shaped, leading westwards from the infirmary hall for 90 ft and then turning northwards to the Chapel of the nine altars. It was like a free-standing cloister alley, with open arcades in groups of three arches supported by twin shafts.At its west end a large archway on the south side led to a yard, and another archway to the west led to a timber continuation of the passage. Late in the thirteenth century this timber continuation was rebuilt in stone.

In the fourteenth century galleries of timber were built above these passages. To support them, the open arcades of the eastern and northern passages were blocked with masonry, and large masonry abutments were added outside the south wall of the east passage to support fireplaces or bay windows in the galleries above. Late in the fifteenth century the galleries were again remodelled and made to serve the abbot's house. More masonry abutments for fireplaces or bays, and two rectangular masonry shafts for latrines were added, as well as a small chamber off the west side of the northern passage. The basement of this chamber remains, with spiral stairs in one angle. Opposite it, in the east wall of the passage, there is a doorway to a yard and, just to the north, another rectangular platform of masonry near the gable of the Chapel of the Nine Altars. When first excavated in the nineteenth century, this platform was found to support remains of an oven, possibly for preparing the eucharistic wafers for the church.

The infirmary hall

At the eastern end of the passage lies the great hall of the infirmary, one of the largest halls in medieval Britain, measuring about 180 by 78 ft and with an internal floor area of almost 12,000 sq ft. It straddles the river, with its long axis roughly from north to south. Only low walls remain, but they show that the hall had a central nave eight bays long and two bays wide, enclosed on both sides and at both ends with an aisle. The appearance of the piers supporting the vanished arcades can be seen from the example re-erected in the south-east corner from fragments found in the nineteenth-century excavations. Other fragments found at the same time show that the aisles once had twin lancet windows in each bay with a circular opening above, and that both nave and aisles were vaulted in stone at a uniform level, the nave having no clerestorey. The hall was heated by fireplaces in the north and south aisles, and it may have had a central hearth as well.

When it was first built in the thirteenth century, the beds of the sick and aged monks would be ranged along the aisles, the central nave being left free. It soon became customary to screen the beds with curtains, in much the same way as a modern hospital ward, and from the fourteenth century onwards to replace the curtains with partitions of wood or stone, creating what were in effect small private wards in individual bays of the aisles. The nineteenth-century excavations revealed traces of this practice belonging to two different dates, but so flimsy that most of them no longer exist. In the fourteenth century most of the bays in the east aisle, and two towards the south end of the west aisle, were partitioned off as wards, and late in the fifteenth century the remaining bays of the west aisle were converted into rooms under Abbots Darnton and Huby. Five of the fireplaces serving these rooms remain, and twin latrine shafts outside the aisle walls towards the south. The base of a flight of steps found in the excavations showed that some of the rooms were in two storeys. In the west aisle the second and sixth bays from the north, and in the east aisle the third and sixth were left open as passages across the hall, linking the other buildings east and west of it.