York Guides

The refectory is one of the noblest rooms in the abbey, measuring 47 by 110 ft and so projecting far to the south of the main range of buildings. Its south end is carried over the river on a vaulted tunnel. Excavations in 1904 showed that this refectory replaced an early twelfth-century one built on an east-west axis, a plan favoured by the older monastic orders and by the Cistercians themselves up to the middle of the twelfth century.

The room is entered from the cloister by an elaborately moulded doorway, and it was originally divided into two aisles by an arcade carried on four columns which have now gone, although the stone plinth of the southernmost survives as well as the corbels from, which the arcade sprang. It had an M-roof in two spans, and the south wall therefore had twin gables, each with a pair of lancets and a circular window above. Later in the Middle Ages the pitch of the roof was lowered and the circular windows were blocked. Each side wall is lit by a range of six shafted lancets.

Conduct during meals was strictly regulated, and the refectory shows many of the arrangements necessary for this. Against the south wall and the southern parts of the east and west walls there is a low platform on which the dining tables stood. The south platform is broader and higher than the others, and it formed the dais for the high table where the prior presided over meals, custom requiring the abbot to eat with the guests. In the centre of the wall over the prior's place there are pinholes to support the crucifix that acted as a reredos to the high table.

Each side platform had two long tables carried on stone legs, some of which remain. Between the tables there were narrow passages with stone jambs, giving access to the benches on which the monks sat with their backs to the walls. The western platform is prolonged northwards to accommodate the sideboard and the lockers for table linen and spoons.

Silence during meals was interrupted only by a reading from the Bible, and the pulpit for this is in the west wall. It is reached by a small doorway which leads to stairs mounting southwards in a passage in the wall in front of the three northern lancets. On the right, just inside the doorway, is a locker for the reader's books. The passage and stairs were once vaulted and their inner wall had an open arcade that matched
the windows in the outer wall. At the top of the stairs there is a landing, and a great corbel carved with leaf designs projects from it into the room to carry the pulpit.