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Abstract
The arrangement of service rooms in medieval houses in south-east England is often taken for granted, namely that two rooms beyond the cross-passage at the lower end of the hall were a standard feature and are usually termed buttery and pantry. Some houses may have had detached kitchens, in others cooking may have taken place within the building. This article looks at surviving houses in both rural and urban Kent and compares them with fifteenth- and sixteenth-century documentary evidence. The results suggest that we should not be too complacent in our interpretations, and that the way service functions were provided may have been more varied than we normally assume.
Most of the drawings were undertaken by Allan T. Adams for earlier publications. I am extremely grateful to him for rearranging and revising them as appropriate for this paper, and for his comments and suggestions on the paper itself. I would also like to thank David and Barbara Martin for constructive comments on a previous draft of the paper that helped me to clarify my thoughts on several issues. I am also grateful to English Heritage for permission to re-use a number of drawings from the 1994 RCHME publications.
Sarah Pearson was formerly an investigator with the RCHME and is now an independent scholar based in Kent and working on medieval town buildings