Ixxii. CHEDDAR, WELLS, AND GLASTONBURY. 



It must have been raised nine or ten feet. For 200 years that 

 unfortunate abbey had been a quarry for the whole neighbour- 

 hood. It was the regular custom to take away the foundations 

 and use them for road metal or farm buildings, and it had been 

 said that there was not a house in Glastonbury which had not a 

 stone from the abbey built into it. Indeed, the abbey was called 

 " The Quarry." They saw the scaffolding up around the transept 

 walls. It was the intention to remove all ivy and to grout the 

 walls in with cement to preserve them. During the last few 

 days, in making excavations in the nave near the base of the 

 western chancel arch, they had come upon what appeared to be 

 the foundations of an earlier church, possibly of the Norman 

 abbey burnt down in 1 1 84. 



In the course of the research work this very day of the Club's 

 visit some fine specimens of complete coloured mosaic tiles were 

 turned up near the west chancel arch ; but the chief find was a 

 medallion engraved on one side with a hand outstretched in 

 blessing, with two stars underneath and the letters or numerals 

 MCV. The work on the reverse side is almost obliterated. It 

 is conjectured that the medallion may have been struck to com- 

 memorate the work of Abbot Herlewin, who ruled Glastonbury 

 Abbey from not to 1120, and who was the first abbot to begin 

 building on a pretentious architectural scale. Abbot Herlewin, as 

 a monk, lived at Caen, in Normandy, and there acquired a taste 

 for architecture. Unfortunately, much of his work was destroyed 

 in the great fire which nearly swept away the abbey in 1 1 84. 



The Club also visited the Abbot's Kitchen a fine and 

 undamaged piece of 1 5th Century work and then proceeded to 

 the railway station to return home. 



