120 PAPERS, ETC. 
Ol Dunr-way ad Frume. 
BY MR. C. E. GILES. 
HIS highly pieturesque doorway, represented 
in the accompanying plate, until last year 
stood in that portion of the town of Frome, called 
Lower Keyford. It formed a portion of the remains 
of some buildings which evidently had once been 
extensive, but whose history seems to be involved 
in much obscurity. Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne 
and kinsman to Ina, king of the West Saxons, 
founded a monastery at Frome about A.n. 705, to 
the honour of St. John the Baptist; and common 
tradition points to these ruins as the remains. But 
in the absence of any clear testimony, this appears 
to me very doubtful; for a monastery situated so 
far from the town, could hardly have been said 
to have been founded in Frome; Keyford being 
spoken of much later as a separate village, and 
even at this day lying on the outskirts. Having 
been but imperfectly acquainted with the ruins, I 
am unable to speak very decidedly, but am in- 
clined to believe that they possessed none of the 
features characteristic of a religious house. The 
