• About
• The Approach
• The Church
• The Tower
• The Passage
• Dormitory Undercroft
• The Infirmary
• Abbott's Lodging
• The Chapel
• Food and Drink
• The Warming House
• The Refectory
• The Reredorter
• The Cellarium
• The Cloister
• The Chapter House
• Parlour and Stairs
• The South Alley

The Abbot's Lodgings

Erected about 1230, the Abbot's Lodging at Kirkstall is one of the earliest and finest examples of its kind in existence (19). According to the Cistercian rule, the abbot was to 'lie in the dorter, to eat in the guesthouse' but by this time it was becoming customary for the abbot to be provided with his own separate living quarters.

The house itself is of three storeys, the ground floor was used as a servants' hall with a main hall or guest room above, while the second floor provided a solar, or private living room. From the southern wall of the lodging, it can be seen that the staircase to the east was lit by a first floor oriel window, while the adjacent rectangular windows illuminated the narrow ante rooms or 'screens' passages leading into the major rooms. Both the hall and the solar were served by two much larger windows, their arched openings being divided into two pointed lights by elegant central pillars.

Within the lodging, fine fifteenth century fireplaces with embattled lintels and tiled firebacks appear on the north wall, other notable features here include the pointed lamp recesses in the north west corner and the main drain channel running beneath the floor of the servants' hall.

Further to the west, a narrow passage (20) forms part of the first floor reredorter or toilet originally constructed to serve the monks' dorter (13), but later adapted to additionally serve the Abbot's Lodging by opening a small doorway through its north cast corner. The grooves cut into the upper walls in this area probably indicate the position of a timber floor, cubicles, and seats.

Visiting Abbot's Lodging

Within the Cistercian order, it was customary for the abbot of the mother house to carry out an annual visitation of all its dependent monasteries. Kirkstall was thus inspected each year by the Abbot of Fountains, or his deputy who was housed in the visiting Abbot's Lodging to the south of the infirmary (17).

This two storey thirteenth century building was re modelled in the fifteenth century by the addition of an external staircase to the first floor, and by the insertion of a great new oriel or bay window mounted on a solid masonry base.