The Laigh Hall

The drawing shows how we think the laigh hall may have looked during a great banquet. The high table would have been at the far end of the room where the host and principal guests would be bathed in sunshine streaming through the large windows on either side.

The other guests would have sat at tables placed along the side walls. Only the host would have sat on a chair, which would probably have been covered with a canopy. All others would have been seated on stools or benches. Those assembled were warmed by fires burning in braziers and the chimney flues are still visible in the side walls.

A timber partition screened the hall from the service area which was linked to the storage cellars below by the mural stair. Guests would have entered the hall through a separate door. Above the passage was a minstrels’ gallery and when “caught short” they would have used a latrine closet high up in the right side of the window.