66 CERNE ABBEY BARN. 



at Cerne Abbas. The surface of the flints appeared to be 

 scarcely so even, or the jointing so close, at the Bridewell as at 

 the barn. And here the outside work only is spoken of. As to 

 the splendid inner flint facing of this barn, nothing of the sort 

 whatever was observed at Norwich. Again, it has to be noted 

 that the chance of studying the original roof design, which the 

 writer had in 1888, now no longer exists. Then there was one 

 of the great trusses almost entirely exposed to view in a large 

 loft or store-room. Now it, as well as all the rest of the huge 

 original timbers still upholding the stone-tiled roof of the 

 dwelling portion of the barn, is ceiled away from sight. In 

 Vol. X. there is an outline showing the ur. common framing of 

 these timbers which, to the writer, appeared to be used. It is 

 quite useless to try to describe the grievous loss in effect 

 suffered by the present barn through the disappearance of it's 

 dark, majestic roof-timbering. But never let it be forgotten by 

 antiquaries that in many hands not the inner effect only, but the 

 outer also, would have been ruined. All honour to the late 

 General Pitt-Rivers for covering the new roof with stone tiles as 

 of old, and not with slates or iron. 



The opinion ventured in the former paper that this and other 

 great monastic barns are, at least partly, crop-barns, and not 

 simply tithe-barns, is still upheld. It may be suggested that, as 

 this seems to have been, and the great Abbotsbury barn certainly 

 was in two divisions, one part may have been for tithe corn and 

 the other for the whole corn crop in straw from the monastery 

 farm. Tithe or main crop, conceive the millions and millions of 

 sheaves which have been carted in great loads through this 

 stately barn-porch. And what divers fashions of waggon, and 

 what divers sorts of raiment on the farm-folk, grouped with the 

 red wheat-loads. It is well within the memory of some of us 

 that the old build of waggon almost all and every part of it 

 curves died out and died hard ; and the old rustic decorations 

 of the painting and bright colours linger yet. Think of the 

 tawny-red wheat, of the scarlets and blues of the graceful 

 waggon, of the greys and russets of the lay brothers and 



