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Roche Abbey: the guesthouse
With no surviving guesthouses or
visitor’s book, little can be said about the administration
of hospitality at Roche, namely, the number and identity of guests
who visited the abbey, where they were accommodated or how they
were tended. Nevertheless, we can assume that at Roche, as elsewhere,
there was from the outset provision of some kind for guests, as
legislated by the Order.(18) A
guest hall and perhaps one or two guest houses may have been located
to the west of the gatehouse, similar
to, if on a smaller scale, than at Fountains.
It has been suggested that in the late fourteenth / early fifteenth
century the lay-brothers
infirmary at Roche was converted to a guesthouse. An arrangement
of this kind would have meant that those who visited Roche would
have been received by the porter and thereafter tended appropriately – according
to their standing - by the guestmaster, or hosteller, as he was
known. In
the early days, at least, visitors would have dined here with the
abbot.(19)
Whilst little can
be said with certainty about the identity of guests, or the number
of visitors who stopped at the abbey seeking
hospitality, the fact that Roche was near several main roads,
and also within a few miles of the R. Trent and the canal that
connected
the Trent with Lincoln and Witham, probably meant that the abbey
had its fair share of passers-by in addition to visits from patrons
and benefactors, ecclesiastical and royal dignitaries, the community’s
family.
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