The Bishop's House was formerly the Deanery, a house built into the former Great Hall of the monastery. Residence was transferred from the Dean to the Bishop in 1941. The oldest part of the building is its 13thc. vaulted undercroft, but the Bishop's rose garden, to the NE of the house includes the 12thc. remains of the Monks' kitchen. This is thought to have been a square structure vaulted in nine bays; the central bay, supported on four piers carrying a lantern or louvre. Most of the S and W walls survive, each with a pair of heavy vault responds carrying scallop capitals, and the remains of windows surviving between the responds.

Nothing is recorded about the history of the Monks' Kitchen. Ladds (1930), 25 suggests that it might be the work of Prior Tombert, who is said to have improved the buildings of the monastery (Wharton (1691), I, 683). This would place it between 1144 and 1154.

Ladds's dating seems too early, especially in view of the form of the window capitals and the keeled vault shafts. The general air of austerity probably had more to do with the utilitarian purpose of the place than with its date. Pevsner confines himself to the century, but for the present author the third quarter seem more likely than the second.