428 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



at the east end, a small semicircular-headed window, about fifteen feet from 

 the ground ; and, at the south side, there is a second window, with a tri- 

 angular or straight-lined head, about the same height from the ground, and 

 measuring one foot nine inches in height. These windows splay considerably 

 on the inside The present entrance doorway of this building, which is placed 

 in the south wall, is obviously not original, or ancient; and the original door- 

 way, which is now built up, was placed in the west end, and at a height of eight 

 feet from the ground. The apartment placed between the arched floor and the 

 slanting roof is six feet in height, and appears to have been originally divided 

 into three apartments, of unequal size, of which the largest is lighted by a 

 small aperture, at the east end. In this chamber there is a flat stone, six feet 

 long, and one foot thick, now called St. Columb's penitential bed. 



The building at Glendalough, called St. Kevin's House, might appear, on a 

 hasty inspection, to have very little in common with the building at Kells ; for, 

 having had a chancel and sacristy attached to it, together with a small round 

 turret belfry springing from its west gable, it would be at once considered as 

 altogether designed for a church. But, on a more careful examination of the 

 building we plainly discover that all these features, though of very great age, 

 are but adjuncts of later date to the original body of the building. The recent 

 wanton destruction of the chancel has enabled us to perceive that the latter, as 

 well as the sacristy connected with it, had formed no part of the original build- 

 ing, which, like St. Columbkille's house at Kells, consisted only of a nave, or 

 large apartment, arched, below, and a small croft immediately under the roof. 



By a reference to the annexed view of this building, as it exists at present, 

 looking nearly due west, it will be at once seen that both the chancel and the sa- 

 cristy were subsequent structures, the masonry of the walls not being, in any place, 

 bonded into that of the larger and original building, in which, it will also 

 be observed, that a deep semicircular groove was chiselled to receive the roofs 

 of the two subsequent structures, and thus prevent the admission of water at 

 those junctions. It will be observed, also, that the chancel arch is equally of 

 subsequent formation; for its semicircular head is not formed on the principle of 

 the arch, but by the cutting away of the horizontally laid stones of the original 

 wall, in which operation a portion of the original semicircular-headed window 

 placed in this wall was destroyed, and the remaining portion of the aperture 



