548 Stanley Abbey. 



put at the disposal of the writer. The first week's work being of 

 interest, the excavations were continued, through the liberality of 

 the owner, for some months ; until all that remained of the claustral 

 buildings was traced. Trendies were also cut across the site of 

 the infirmary, but with little result. The whole of the buildings, 

 except the western range, had been so rifled for stone at various 

 times that in most cases the main walls were grubbed up to the 

 veriest foundations, and the lines of many were clearly marked by 

 sinkings in tlie ground. For all that the result has been far from 

 fruitless and has enabled the plan of another Cistercian abbey to be 

 definitely settled, as far as possible under the circumstances. 



The Precinct. 



The site of every monastic house was enclosed by a boundary wall 

 or dyke, and within the precinct thus formed were placed the build- 

 ings of the abbey. With the Cistercians, even " stables for horses 

 n)ust be put within the circuit of our abbeys, and no house for 

 liabitation may be built without the gate, unless for animals, by 

 reason of avoiding the dangers of souls. If there be any, let them 

 fall ; moreover let all the gates of abbeys be without the bounds." ^ 



At Stanley the precinct was roughly in the form of a rectangle, 

 with its longest faces to the north and south, containing about 

 twenty-four acres,^ and the main buildings around the cloister 

 were placed in the north-west angle. It was surrounded by dykes, 

 which were filled with water by a system of sluices, and though 

 now dry are perfect on all but a part of the west side. The precinct 

 may have been further protected by a wooden stockade on the 

 inner bank of the ditches, as no sign of a surrounding wall remains. 



A long leat for the water, that filled the ditches on the south 

 and east sides, runs in at the south-east angle of the precinct, from 

 the high ground to the south. ^ It is banked on both sides, but 



' Cistercian Statutes, Ch. I. vide Yorkshire ArchcBological Journal,\x. 341. 



■^ The area within the precinct walls at Beaulieu was about fifty-eight acres, 

 at Fountains fifty-five acres, and at Tintern twenty-seven acres. 



^ A great quantity of water still comes from this land and runs in a strong 

 brook directly to the head of the leat, but is now tapped at this point and is 

 taken off in a westerly direction. 



