276 Stanley Abbey. 
and guest-house, dormitory, infirmary, and refectory, barns and 
storehouses, and all the multitude of offices required in a large 
establishment where almost everything had to be self-supplied, these 
were not built inaday. At Fountains, the great Yorkshire house 
of the Cistercians, the monks sheltered themselves for a while under 
the rocks which bordered the valley and beneath some spreading yew 
trees which still remain. For many years the monks at Stanley must 
have found shelter in wooden dwellings, the materials for which 
were abundant in the adjacent forests; and combining work with 
devotion set themselves to reclaiming their land and erecting per- 
manent buildings. To do this took them more than a hundred 
years. We learn from the Bodleian Manuscript! that they enter 
their new monastery in 1246: in 1266 their Church was consecrated 
by Walter de la Wile, Bishop of Sarum: they enter their new 
refectory, or dining hall, on St. John Baptist’s Day, 1270. Thus, 
portion by portion, the monastery was built up in strength and 
beauty, and was completed in the severe style of the best period of 
the first pointed or Early English ; and these dates correspond pretty 
closely with the building of that glorious monument of Gothic 
architecture, our Cathedral of Salisbury, which was consecrated in 
- 1258. One other matter I may mention here as connecting the old 
with the new site of the abbey; in the Bodleian Manuscript! it is 
mentioned as noteworthy that “in this year (1214) was finished the 
aqueduct from Lockswelle to the Abbey of Stanley in Wilts by 
my Lord Thomas of Colestune, Abbot of that house: he began the 
work timidly, but by the help of God and the Lord Jesus Christ 
and good John the Evangelist, he finished it well and excellently : 
whose memory be blessed for ever. Amen.” The entry seem to 
show how thankful the monks were to enjoy again the pure whole- 
some water of their spring. And in days when there were no cast 
iron pipes cheap and handy, it was not quite so easy a matter to 
bring the water along the windings of the hill side, free from rotting 
1 For this manuscript, K. D. (Kenelm Digby), xi., see Bowles’ History of 
Bremhill, pp. 114, 120; it was examined for Bowles by Dr. Bandinell ; it is also 
cited by Mr. W. de Grey Birch in the article referred to infra. 
: 
: 
