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Manor Hall
The hall was the most important room in the manor house. It was used for feasts at Christmas and harvest time, courts were held in the hall and villagers came to pay their rent.
At one end, a thin wooden screen hid the door to the cross-wing and kitchen. The screen was often decorated with paintings, carvings or tapestries. Sometimes, a small platform for musicians called a 'minstrels' gallery was built on top of a screen. We can�t tell if the screen at Thrislington had a minstrels� gallery.
Sometime in the 1200s an extension was built, doubling the size of the hall. You can see where the end wall of the upper hall was knocked through in the model. Wooden pillars held up the archway in the space that was created. Opposite the screen, beyond the archway, the lord and his family sat on a raised wooden platform at the end of the lower hall. At Thrislington, large double doors in the lower hall opened out on the lord�s left to the front courtyard, and on his right to the back garden.
A fire was built in the centre of the hall, on a hearth made of tiles. There was no chimney, the smoke drifted up into the rafters and out of small gaps in the tiled roof. Iron fire dogs allowed large logs to be arranged over the fire.
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