Canons assembled here every day after Prime to hear a chapter of the canons' rule, pray, transact business, confess sins, and be punished. They assembled again in the evening for a spiritual lecture before bed (WARD).
 
40’ x 24' 6". *Groined (H79)  *vaulted (WARD) roof supported by 2 most *elegant (H79) *slender (WARD) clustered columns (bases in situ, capitals, some parts of shaft, all the ribs and springers have been found). The shafts consisted of 8 filletted 3/4 rounds clustered round a centre.  It was whitewashed throughout (H79).
 
The room was remodelled in the mid 13th century (H79 quoted in D1990).
 
The difference of level is ‘possibly accidental rather than intentional’ (H79).  The space above the eastern bay was probably occupied, as at Easby, by the Muniment Room, which may account for the lower level of the pier beneath (H80).
 
Double portal (like that into the chapter house at Lichfield Cathedral (H80)) heavily moulded, off the eastern ambulatory of the cloister (WARD).
A magnificent doorway 6’ wide. Jam shafts had dogtooth running up between them (H79).  Doorway of 4 orders of colonnettes (PEVSNER).  5 bases on each side, not much uncovered.
Doorway and outer walls Early English, groining and vaulting shafts later, perhaps under Abbot Simon 1264-69.
The north wall has a blocked up doorway into the sacristy, with an iron door-hinge still embedded in the masonry (H79).
 
Base of the stone platform for benches (H79) .
Canons' seats round the sides on a stone basement; Prior - Abbot - Sub-prior seats below the east end windows.
2 painted windows at the east end; all windows conspicuous (WARD).
 
See Effigy.
 
Several monuments on the floor (WARD).  At the south-west a large double slab covering a married couple; 14th century, its incised lines originally red.  
Middle slab with shield and triangle (a stirrup-iron?) (H79).
Double coped tomb of Purbeck marble, each half charged with a cross fleury (see Tombs).
On the north side, built into the stone platform was part of a very fine incised cross-slab (HOPE).
‘It was ascertained that the slab of a Knight, which lay by the effigy, covered a skeleton, but without a coffin’ (H80).
The double marble slab in the centre of the Chapter House was removed:  to the south was a much decayed wooden coffin with remains of a skeleton of unascertainable gender;  ‘north of this was a perfect stone coffin, without a lid or covering, also containing a skeleton’;  the coffin was 2” thick, 6’ 1½” inside, 10½” deep, 20½” wide at the head and 10½” at the foot.
To the north of this slab was another interment in a sound oak coffin (see Tombs).    
Chapter house
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