By C. H. Talbot. 13 
supporting transverse arches, which carried the east wall of the 
dormitory. The base of this pillar remains, in a mutilated state, 
and under it is a portion of the original pavement, which shows 
evidence of settlement. The western pillar is octagonal,! and has 
lost its base, but was similar to one, in a corresponding position, in 
the sacristy, which remains perfect. An examination of the bottom 
of this pillar revealed the fact that two stones have been inserted 
under it, no doubt to counteract a settlement; at which time the 
floor was raised and such of the base mouldings as remained were 
removed. A stone coffin was found, 7 sitw, immediately to the east 
of this pillar, at a higher level than the original floor, which shows 
this underpinning of the pillar and raising of the floor? to have 
been done at a late date, probably in the fifteenth century; at 
which time the base of the other pillar must have been mutilated 
and the floor carried over it. A stone coffin was found, at a low 
level, in the south-east bay, and another, in the cloister, exactly 
opposite the entrance to the chapter-house. All these had been 
disturbed before; but the two in the chapter-house, which were 
examined, contained human bones,? which were not disturbed 
further. There was nothing to show what persons had been buried 
there. All these coffins have been left in position. The responds 
and vaulting shafts, in the chapter-house, did not originally, as at 
present, descend to the floor, but terminated on a stone seat which 
1 When the late Mr. J. H. Parker, C.B., was here he pronounced these 
octagonal pillars of the chapter-house and sacristy to be insertions of the 
fourteenth century, and suggested that the original pillars had probably been of 
Purbeck marble, laid the wrong way of the bed, and had given way. I adopted 
his view, at the time, but have since reverted to the opinion that they are 
original, and are perhaps to be regarded as examples of transition from Early 
English to Decorated. It is noticeable that the detached shafts, in the recently- 
discovered west front of the chapter-house, are not of Purbeck marble, and there 
is no evidence that that material was used in the chapter-house and sacristy at all. 
2 The fifteenth century level of the floor appears to have been maintained in 
the sixteenth century. 
3 The bones in the coffin at the low level were in great disorder. That coffin 
was simply covered down again. The coffin at the high level, in which the bones 
were fairly in order, was filled with concrete, which was necessary for the new 
tile pavement. The coffin in the cloister was not examined. 
