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Roche Abbey: the cloister
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Whereas the south, east and west walkways of
the cloister essentially functioned as passageways, the north alley
was used extensively by the monks who sat here on stone benches
to read, meditate and perhaps also to copy manuscripts. The novice-master
might instruct novices here
and the whole community gathered in the north alley each day for
the Collation reading. The cloister
would have been warm and bright in the summer, but the monks would
have found it rather bleak during the chilly winter months, and
if it was extremely cold they were permitted to read in the chapter-house,
instead. The cloister was also used for more practical activities:
it was here that the monks shaved, washed themselves and their
clothes, and hung the laundry to dry. The laundry at Roche was
probably situated on the north side of the cloister, where a circular
hole and the remains of a drain can be seen between two large buttresses.(1)
Although little of Roche’s
cloister has survived, a section of the cloister arcade has been
reconstructed from pieces recovered
during excavation of the site, and can now be seen in the abbey
museum. This reveals that the cloister arcade was of early Gothic
design and was one of the finest and most elaborate in the country.
It underwent little alteration until the dissolution of the abbey
in the sixteenth century.(2)
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