Visiting the Abbey

From the Dark Cloister visitors reach Little Cloister and in its east walk there remains the fine fourteenth-century doorway, which led into the ancient Chapel of Saint Catherine. The original chapel was built in the twelfth century and consisted of a nave and two aisles.

The north arcade partly survives in the form of the lower parts of the columns alternately round and octagonal. On the south side all the columns stand to the height of the capitals; the three eastern arches have been filled in, but each round arch still contains some of its original twelfth-century voussoirs. To the south of this blocked arcade the outer wall of the aisles has been demolished and the ground is taken up by the courtyard of numbers 4 and 5 Little Cloister. At the west end, however, the outer wall of the south aisle stands an original twelfth-century window opening. The roof of the chapel was removed in 1578 and a house built over part of it. Bombs destroyed the successor to this house in 1941, and in subsequent rebuilding much of the original chapel was left exposed.

The chapel was used for many important assemblies, both secular and clerical, including the consecration of various prelates. It was here that in 1176 the precedence between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York was decided in Canterbury's favour. It is also where Henry III solemnly swore on the Holy Gospels to maintain the Magna Carta.