554 Stanley Abbey. 



The two columns of the east wall were fouiid, sunk into pits, 

 oft' their proper beds, and without bases or foundations, indicating 

 that this part of the building had been destroyed wholesale by the 

 use of props and mining. 



With the exception of Lewes priory no other example of this 

 drastic method of destruction is known to have been employed in 

 monastic buildings. The process is minutely described in a letter 

 to Cromwell from Giovanni Portinari, who was employed to raze 

 that great church and the infirmary chapel. Tlie text of this letter 

 has recently been published by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope,^ and 

 that part describing the demolition he translates : — 



First we shall cut away the bottom of the foundation and cut it away 

 to the height of a yard and a quarter so that a uaan may get under to 

 work and pass to the other side, which is about a yard and a half or 

 two, and put beneath planks of a thickness of 3 inches from one side 

 to the other and put on each side a prop a yard long or thereabouts ; 

 and so one goes on, following by degrees, cutting and propping, and 

 similarly the four columns within so that each can stand upon two 

 props. And when the said chapels and columns have been cut and 

 propped on that side and you wish to bring them to the ground the 

 props on that side only will be burnt either with fire or with powder, 

 as we may judge best, and so we reckon to bring them to the ground ; 

 and this it appears is the best, short, and certain manner that may be 

 and everyone who has seen this beginning judges that all will succeed ; 

 and it will be that in eight or ten days at longest we hope all will 

 be down. 



At Stanley this transept was apparently the only part so treated, 

 owing, perhaps, to an accident which occurred to one of the de- 

 molishers, who was caught by the falling masonry and there left 

 buried. His skeleton was found as he fell. 



The columns consisted on plan of four half-circles surrounded 

 by eight detached columns, wliich were banded, probably at half 

 height, and the capitals were moulded. The arches were of three 

 moulded members and had hood-moulds. Fragments of all these 

 different parts were found as they fell ; but not a single vaulting 

 rib was met with, which, judging from the number of those found 

 elsewhere, seems to show that no part of the transept was vaulted. 



' Sussex Archceological Society's Collectivtis, xlix. 76 — 81. 



