Cistercian churches were built to a regular plan, with the church and other buildings set around a central square courtyard or cloister. Unusually, the cloister here is not square but rectangular. This may reflect a scaling back of resources as construction moved from east to west after the eastern range, which represents the long axis of the rectangle, was completed. 

The northern walk of the cloister is now partially blocked by large stone buttresses, inserted in 1908 to support the south wall of the nave. Behind the middle buttress are the weathered and rare remains of a collation seat where the abbot would have sat during an evening reading or collation, with the monks seated on benches to either side.

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