IlEPOftT. Jt 



or extciul his observations on tbc arrangcmcnli of monastic 

 Institutions. 



The remains of the Abbey Church have long been admired, 

 as exhibiting one of the most beautiful examples of Gothic 

 Architecture in its purest style ; but it was little suspected 

 that, under the elevated platform of the Manor Shore, had 

 been buried, for two centuries, the entire ground plan of the 

 Monastery belonging to that Church ; that there existed in 

 that concealment, unmoved and undisturbed from their place, 

 walls and columns, and the bases of buttresses and gateways ; 

 here, the steps of a staircase and the glazed tiles of a 

 pavement ; and there, a spacious fire-place still standing, with 

 its sculptured corbels ; in one place, the richly carved pillars 

 and circular fragments of a Norman arch, and in another, a 

 knot or a keystone of still more elaborate workmanship, from 

 some vaulted roof of a later date. 



These discoveries having been first made in excavating the 

 foundations of the, new Museum, they were further prosecuted 

 by a private subscription ; and care was taken on the part bf 

 the Society, that, as they proceeded, a plan should be drawn, 

 and accurate admeasurements should be made, of every part 

 of the remains. The finished character of the architecture, 

 exhibiting some very elegant specimens of the style in use 

 during the early part of the fourteenth century, together 

 with some ornamented examples of that which belonged to 

 the more ancient Monastery, founded by William Rufus ; the 

 interest, also, attached in other respects, to the long concealed 

 relics and unrecorded plan of so great and powerful an 



