68 Ruins and Stones of Holywood Abbey. 



undoubtedly ruins. James M'Greg-or, 23 years bellman, but now 

 retired, says : The place went by tlie name of the old abbey or 

 nunnery. There are stones above the surface to shew where it 

 was. Once, when digging a child's grave, he came on an opening 

 leading downwards, at one end of the grave, and he might have 

 fallen through. The child's grave was sunk a long way next 

 morning. He took a stick six feet long and a rope as long, and 

 let it down, and it did not reach bottom. He says it was the sub- 

 terranean passage. In digging three feet further over he came 

 upon a fireplace and grate which belonged to the abbey. The 

 grate contained ashes. He came to flooring, and on lifting up a slab, 

 4 feet by 3, saw causeway work made of small stones, like pebbles, 

 and there was figuring ; he could not say what the " figuring " 

 was ; perhaps a date. He also came upon a great many old bones 

 — ^buckets of them , as he expressed it — decayed almost to powder, 

 which he says are the bones of the monks that were buried there. 

 He once came upon " a wall arranged in steps," which was prob- 

 ably a buttress to the side of the abbey. It was very sohd and 

 firm. He found a halbert, made of brass, which the late Mr Max 

 well of Gribton got possession of. He is positive about the 

 chamber with the causewaying and the subterranean passage. 

 There is some one buried right in the middle of the flags referred 

 to. He once fell through while digging at the spot, and was only 

 prevented from going deeper by his arms holding on to the banks 

 where he was digging. He says if he was driven down to the 

 place he could point qut where the flooring is. In the wall around 

 the churchyard the stones peculiar to the abbey are seen to be 

 mixed with other stones, but the former predominate. They are 

 for the most part square and oblong blocks — the square 8 and 9 

 inches, the oblong from one to two feet, up to four and five feet. 

 They are for the most part smooth, sometimes polished, and of 

 one kind of freestone. The main building of the church is wholly 

 Ijuilt of these ; but except for a certain ancient appearance there 

 is nothing remarkable to note about them. In the churchyard 

 wall, however, are some stones of special character, which the 

 lecturer described, and of which he exhibited very careful draw- 

 ings. One about the centre of the south wall has carved on it a 

 rich floral design, and was such as you might expect to see over 

 or at the side of a principal doorway of a monastry. Three plainly 

 carved stones, in the same wall ; one in the east wall with the 



