MYNCniN BÜCKLAND PRIORY. 59 



members of each Community at various periods of their 

 histoiy. To these the reader is referred. 



Of the local features of the Prioiy and Preceptory we 

 have no account save the incidental notices of various 

 buildings in the Return of 1338, and a Survey mentioned 

 by Collinson, from " MS. Palmer," as having been taken 

 in the year 1571, when much of the conventual structure 

 ■\voukl have been altered if not totally destroyed. These 

 notices relate exclusively to the Preceptory. In the former, 

 as the reader will recoUect, we have mention made of a 

 court-house, a bakehouse, a dovecot, and a small church. 

 The latter shows that the house of the Preceptor and his 

 brethren was on the north side of the great church, and 

 was called at the period of the Survey " the House of the 

 Lord Prior's steward." It must not, however, be inferred 

 from this absence of detail that the Priory was othervvise 

 than well fitted for its inmates. The religious commu- 

 nities of the middle ages w'ere usually occupants of 

 structures of incomparable excellence, and we may be 

 tolerably sure that such a Sisterhood as that of Buckland 

 was no exception to this constant rule. Their abode was 

 no doubt a picturesque group of buildings, io which nothing 

 but the glorious architecture of medi^val times could have 

 given existence ; buildings ever lovely themselves, and 

 attracting the love of all that look upon them with rightly 

 appreciating and understandlng eyes. It is much to be 

 regretted that Leland who was in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood, if not at the very place, does not furnish us with a 

 descriptlon of the scene. He pleasantly describes tlie park 

 from whence tlie Sisters obtained their firewood, and the deer 

 witli which it abounded. " There ys a great Nurabre of Dere 

 longging to this (Pederton) Park, yet hath it almost no other 

 Enclosure but Dikcs to Ict [obstruct] tlie Catcllc of the 



