Notes on Bermondsey Abbey. 108 
sandstone, but I make it to be carboniferous limestone; at all 
events I noticed on it a trilobite and plenty of encrinite stems, 
and this leads me to what originally attracted my attention to 
Bermondsey Abbey—the discovery of chalk coffins or graves. 
I find that the above writer records that about forty feet from the 
stone coffin was discovered a massive wall, which appears to have 
been the south wall of the Abbey church. Eighteen inches from 
the south side of this wall and at a depth of 7 ft. 9 in. was found 
a grave formed of carefully hewn blocks of chalk. The flooring 
of the grave was concrete, formed of finely screened gravel mixed 
with lime three inches thick; the grave was twelve inches in 
depth, and contained a human skeleton completely embedded in 
a mass of brown loam. There was no lid or other covering. Mr. 
Price records chalk graves of the Anglo-Saxons found by Sir 
Christopher Wren in the foundations of St. Paul’s Cathedral. 
I think the Anglo-Saxon date may be incorrect. 
In the foundations of the model dwellings mentioned above 
Messrs. Smith, the contractors, found four chalk graves containing 
human remains, showing that the conventual burial ground ex- 
tended to the other side of Abbey Street. 
These were somewhat similar to the grave recorded by Mr. 
Price; but, instead of being plain at the head, as shown in Mr. 
Price’s illustration, these were built round for the head in the 
same shape as the stone coffin now in St. Mary Magdalen’s. 
The graves recently found were at a depth of about six feet, and 
the bodies had been buried in sand. There were no lids, or any 
stones under the skeletons. The bodies had—as you see from 
the photographs—been laid on their backs, and simply surrounded 
and protected by chalk blocks. The skeletons were re-buried at 
Nunhead Cemetery by the Bermondsey County Council; but Mr. 
Smith has preserved the blocks of chalk, and I hope that the 
Scientific Committee of the Croydon Council—the Roads Com- 
mittee—will secure them for the Borough Museum at Grange 
Wood, where months ago it was reported they were to be placed. 
Mr. C. H. Read, F.8.A., has placed the date of these graves as 
thirteenth century, which is confirmed by the jug exhibited on 
the table, which Mr. C. M. Smith informs me was found in one of 
the graves, which I am advised at the British Museum is of late 
thirteenth century work. I think we may therefore fairly con- 
clude the burials to be those of members of the convent in the 
thirteenth century. 
In the progress of the excavations the other pottery upon the 
table was found. 
The small pot has been suggested to be a modern water-pot for 
a bird-cage, the hole in the handle being for the insertion of a 
piece of wood to keep it in its place. 
The small cup is, I think, an apothecary’s jar of about the 
seventeenth century. 
