The great chamber was the second most important room in a medieval or Tudor English castle, palace, mansion, or manor house after the great hall. Medieval great halls were the ceremonial centre of the household and were not private at all; the gentlemen attendants and the servants would come and go all the time. The great chamber was at the dais end of the hall, usually up a staircase. It was the first room which offered the lord of the household some privacy from his own staff, albeit not total privacy. In the Middle Ages the great chamber was an all-purpose reception and living room. The family might take some meals in it, though the great hall was the main eating room. In modest manor houses it sometimes also served as the main bedroom.
Evidence of chamber blocks separate to the hall can be seen as far back as the 10th century, for example in the excavated manor at Sulgrave, Northamptonshire. Upper chambers are also depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, such as in scene 3, where Harold Godwinson is feasting in his chamber at Bosham. After the Norman Conquest, plans of large houses became more integrated, and the great chamber assumed its standard place at the end of the hall. Some chamber blocks were built of stone and have survived, though the timber halls to which they were attached have vanished. This has led to confusion, with earlier historians like Margaret Wood seeing them as first floor halls. Examples include Burton Agnes Old Hall, Boothby Pagnell Manor, Hemingford Grey Manor and the School of Pythagoras in Cambridge. This development continued in the 13th century, though the halls became more frequently of stone, as at Old Soar Manor, of c.1280-90. Old Soar illustrates another development of the time, the addition of smaller rooms attached to the great chamber - in this case, a garderobe and a chapel. At this time, the standard plan of a manor had a single block attached to the hall, with the chamber above and the services below.
