MINSMERE LEVEL in 



of St Mary in the old monastery by the sea." It is the 

 remains of this chapel, standing on the desolate marsh, 

 that form so arresting a feature in the dreary landscape. 

 The roof of the building and the stone mullions of the 

 windows have entirely disappeared, but the outside 

 walls remain, built of pebbles from the beach, inter- 

 spersed here and there with a few Roman tiles. On the 

 crumbling walls of the chapel, which only measures 

 some 35 feet by 18, various plants have established 

 themselves, such as mallow and mustard and pearlwort 

 and fescue-grasses. A single specimen of the char- 

 acteristic Suffolk species, Sisymbrium Sophia, L., or 

 flixweed, was also nourishing on the broken masonry. 

 From the shelter of the ruin it was possible to watch 

 unobserved the wild life of the marshes. A large flock 

 of swallows, old birds and young, had congregated, as 

 they will do before migration, on the fallow outside, 

 every now and then rising in a body and settling again. 

 A couple of kestrel-hawks were hovering over the 

 marshes on the look-out for field mice, which abound on 

 the drier portions of the level, several herons rose with 

 laboured flight from the reed-fringed dykes, a solitary 

 curlew flew over the chapel just above the summit of 

 the walls, while all around, in keeping with the weird 

 and desolate surroundings, rose the mournful wail of 

 the green plover. 



When the good Leiston Abbot was living as an 

 anchorite in the chapel by the sea the marshes were 

 as yet untouched by man. Kingsley's description of 

 Whittlesea Mere before the draining of the fens 

 might almost equally well be applied to the old 

 Minsmere marshes, which must have been a famous 

 resort of wild-fowl in the olden times. Even in the 



