CHEDDAR, WELLS, AND GLASTONBURY. Ixxi. 



" The Architectural History of Glastonbury Abbey " was the 

 standard work upon the abbey, was of opinion that there were 

 five chapels in a row at the east end, and he based his opinion 

 upon the fact that there was evidence of internal screen walls 

 dividing the chapels from one another. Mr. Bligh Bond then 

 told the party what led him to make his extremely interesting 

 excavations. He had for some time past had a strong 

 impression that the chapel, which was the work of the two last 

 Abbots (Beere and Whiting), must have been a work of con- 

 siderable magnitude ; and this impression was confirmed by his 

 interpretation of an Inventory made in the time of Queen 

 Elizabeth, which gave the length of the different parts of the 

 Abbey in series, making the whole 594 feet. But the man who 

 made this Inventory had fallen into a curious error, and put 

 everyone off the track by calling this chapel the " Chapter 

 House." 



Mr. Bond, however, felt certain that it implied that there 

 was a retro-chapel of St. Edgar right at the east end, and 

 that it was a much larger chapel than anybody would sup- 

 pose. He began by cutting a trench, and ran it out 7ft. 6in. 

 from the east wall, and now they had the west wall and 

 two return walls running eastward. They were massive walls, 

 and they contained land-drains for carrying off the water which 

 collected on the clay. The run of the two walls which 

 connected this chapel with the choir was clearly ascertainable 

 from the cutting, for they found the position of the various 

 buttresses which divided the wall into five bays. He pointed to 

 the south-east corner of the chapel and substantial remains of the 

 buttresses coming out eastward and southward close to the angle. 

 They had also the return wall running northward, forming the 

 east wall of the chapel and giving it a total length of something 

 like 52 feet by about 25. It was impossible to say exactly what 

 were the dimensions of the chapel, because all that they had 

 found was a footing wall. There was no above walling at all, no 

 ashlar or dressed stone left. They inferred that the height of 

 the floor of that chapel above the choir was very considerable. 



