With our backs turned to Fred, let us return up the Chapter House steps and through the doorways both medieval and Victorian and enter the Cloister, with its surrounding buildings.  

The cloister was almost exactly the same size as Abbey House’s orchard; the ground level of the orchard is higher than that in the Chapter House and the abbey church because most of the orchard/cloister has never been excavated. It is very likely that the cloister walkways would have been used to bury most of the abbots. The cloister was newly begun in 1478, and nearly finished in 1482.

In 24 of the 26 British Premonstratensian abbeys where details are available, the cloister lay on the south side of the church: exceptions are found at Easby and Croxton, where the lie of the land necessitated the variation.  At Croxton the lavatorium projects into the cloister and is rectangular, whereas they were usually polygonal or round and near the refectory door.
The abbey’s cloister court was 85 foot six inches square and consisted of a grassy centre surrounded by walkways ten feet wide; the foundations of the walls of the walkways were five feet wide. The walkways were timber-roofed with square-headed traceried windows closely spaced and rich. (See Chapter 16.) The north and west walkways were higher than the south one, which leaned onto the refectory undercroft. The north one was used as a library, the west as a music room, while the south one had the lavatorium (a trough for hand-washing) near the refectory door.

Some of the cloister’s windows survive in Morley Church (see Chapter 16). This glass dates from the second half of the14th century. They portray: St Robert of Knaresborough and the Deer; St Ursula and 11 virgins ascending to heaven in a sheet; the Invention of the Cross. It appears they were installed in 1478-82 under Abbot Stanley, when the cloister was created. The window-frames are later Perpendicular.

Portions of the tile pavement of the walkways were found at different levels in1879.

If you had stood in the middle of the cloister court in its heyday and looked east, you would have seen several doorways. From north to south: a large doorway opening into the south transept under the night stair; a small pointed doorway to the sacristy (conjectured in some sources); the double portal of the chapter house, heavily moulded; and the door to the slype.