XXVIU. BEAULIEU ABBEY. 



The Rev. C. W. H. Dicker added a few observations upon the 

 architectural features of the chapel, the details of which were much 

 admired. The date was about 1350, and the geometrical tracery 

 of the west window was entirely characteristic of the 14th century, 

 especially in the great development of those chapelries belonging to 

 the monastic houses. 



Buckler's Hard- 



A note of the days of Nelson was struck in the appearance of Buckler's 

 Hard, on the Beaulieu River, whither the party next drove. Here 

 they saw the launching slips from which were launched the wooden 

 men o' war, among them four vessels that fought at Trafalgar. 



Captain Elwes invited the Members to realise the time when 

 Buckler's Hard was one of the busiest places along the south-coast, 

 particularly convenient for ship-building, since the oak timber grown 

 in the Forest was close at hand, and the place, up that winding 

 creek, was well out of the way of hostile privateers. 



Beaulieu Abbey. 



According to a manuscript in the Cotton Library, " in the sixth 

 year of King John, the king built a certain monastery of the Cistercian 

 Order in England and called it Bellus Locus." 



Captain Elwes gave a short account of the rise and history of the 

 Cistercian Order, observing that Stephen Harding, formerly a monk 

 of Sherborne, might be correctly described rather as the lawgiver of 

 the order than as its actual founder at Citeaux. Beaulieu was a 

 perfect example of a Cistercian Abbey ; and they might imagine what 

 wealth and power the abbey enjoyed by the enormous area eovercd 

 by the church, which was originally larger than any of the cathedrals 

 of the kingdom, but of which, alas ! not a single stone was left. The 

 flagged way outside the penthouse of the cloister gave admission to the 

 various shops that occupied the cloister at the time when the abbey 

 was in full activity — one that of the wood carver, another that of the 

 painter, yet another the school, marked by that series of steps similar 

 to those they might remember to have seen in Winchester College. 

 In fine weather the various occupations necessary to the abbey were 

 carried on in these cloisters. The monks had their own port for sea- 

 borne goods — on the other side of the river, and their market for inland 

 goods — up in a field still called Cheapside. 



The party were here joined by Mr. J. W. Nash-Brown (in charge of 

 Lord Montagu's estate office), who acted as guide, and conducted 

 them over the buildings. After traversing the whole length of the bare 

 site of the great abbey, the party entered the parish church, where the 

 guide indicated the changes which had been made to adapt the refectory 



