ABBOTSBURY ABBEY. 45 



what is now the milkhouse. Then what of the building'by the 

 farmhouse, consisting now of a stable and the garden wall at right 

 angles to it ? The remaining work looks somewhat like part of 

 two sides of a quadrangle.* Now, I am ignorant of the general 

 position and nature of the dwelling of the lay brothers of a 

 Monastery. But in one where, as probably here, much land was 

 kept in hand, the lay brothers must have been pretty numerous, for 

 I presume most of the farm work was done by them. Can this 

 supposed quadrangle, adjoining probably the great barton, have 

 been the lay brothers' abode ? Or, again, it might be that and 

 stables combined. 



I said that probably much of the Abbey lands, within easy 

 reach, was kept in hand. I judge by the stupendous barn, to 

 which we now come in our survey. It is difficult to believe that 

 that enormous building was required only for tithe corn and 

 perhaps rent corn. It is, and always has been, in two divisions. 

 May not one be for the corn received as above, and the other for 

 the home estate corn ? But let us think a moment not of the 

 uses but of the structure of this 282 foot barn. Ashlar without, 

 ashlar within, of most seemly and noble i5th century style, with 

 the north porch and the west gable specially admirable features, 

 well would it be if all our churches were half as well designed and 

 carried out. The buttressing of the west gable is a very bold and 

 clever bit of architecture, the crenellated heads of the corner 

 buttresses and the niche crowning the centre one giving a finished 

 and artistic air to the whole, quite wonderful in a barn. We may 

 notice the same style partly reproduced in the gable of the dairy 

 house and in the ivied " Pynion end." I think Irom the 

 considerable rebuilding of the top of the north wall of the western 

 bam that now in use that there was a time when it could not 

 and did not therefore carry a roof. Probably this was after the 

 spoil of the monastery at the dissolution. For I put down the 



* It is very difficult to understand the eastern face of the garden wall. 

 The windows suggest two stories, but no signs of flooring arrangements can 

 be detected. 



