70 
engaged in demolishing the place. This accident put a stop to 
the work of destruction and has left to the present time what 
remains of this beautiful fabric. The Church was cruciform, 211 
feet in length W. to E. 58 feet in width, and in the transepts 128 
feet. The S. transept and E. end are the most perfect of the 
ruins, which comprise also a groined vestibule, chapter house, 
refectory and kitchen. Several poets have enshrined in verse the 
. elegance of these ruins, and joined in mournful strains over its 
fallen splendour, Keate, Sotheby and Bowles and even Barham of 
the Ingoldsby Legends have sympathetically bemoaned the deso- 
lation which has overtaken an Abbey, graceful in Early English 
architecture, and charmingly situated on the shore of Southampton 
Water. It is said that the very name Netley is a corruption of 
its original, Letley or Pleasant Place. 
Keate thus writes of the dismantled Abbey :— 
Now sunk deserted and with weeds o’ergrown 
Yon prostrate walls their awful fate bewail ; 
Low on the ground their topmost spires are thrown, 
Once friendly marks to guide the wandering sail. 
The ivy now with rude luxuriance bends 
Its tangled foliage through the cloistered space, 
O’er the green window’s mouldring height ascends. 
And fondly clasps it with a last embrace. 
While the self-planted oak, within confined, 
(Auxiliar to the tempest’s wild uproar, ) 
Its giant branches fluctuates to the wind, 
And rends the wall, whose aid it courts no more. 
Returning to the Hartley Institute in Southampton High 
Street, the excursionists were met by Mr. T. W. Shore, the 
executive officer of the Institute and organizing secretary of the 
Hampshire Field Club, who had kindly consented to act as 
cicerone to the party over the ancient walls, gates and towers of 
the place. The party set forth at once’ for the site of the 
watergate removed in 1804 and turning 120 yards to the E. 
— 
a 
