I 24 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



chamber and the church. The chapter-house, as usual, occurs next 

 in order. At Grey Abbey its remains are more complete and cha- 

 racteristic of the usual plan than at Inch, which seems to have been 

 completely gutted ; it has been divested of every scrap of architec- 

 tural detail, its walls rasped and quarried. The local ancient in- 

 forms us that at the east wall of this chapter-house was dug out the 

 largest human skull he ever saw. We succeeded in hunting up a 

 fragment of one of the flat cuneiform stones belonging to this 

 chapter-house : for the last twenty years it had served the utilitarian 

 purpose of door-step to a barn or stable ; on it is incised the stem 

 of a carved cross and the chalice, indicating the tombstone of an 

 abbot or other eminent ecclesiastic. The passage or parlour, which 

 usually lies adjacent to the chapter-house, shows very distinctly in 

 Grey Abbey, but as yet the division wall has not been made visible at 

 Inch. The walls of the fratry or monks'' day-room are visible in both 

 abbeys — in Inch it has been extensively quarried, and as yet we 

 cannot say how far southward it extended. In Grey Abbey it was 

 evidently vaulted, and we have the moulded bases of a few of the 

 central row of columns. The kitchen at Inch and Grey Abbey is 

 visible, but at Grey Abbey unmistakably so, as the open of its fire- 

 place is quite discernible. In Inch Abbey its features are all de- 

 stroyed. The refectory in Grey Abbey is quite in consonance with 

 the Cistercian plan ; it lies north and south, and has its ruined pul- 

 pit, from which, during meals, a readei " entertained the monks 

 with intellectual, while they entertained themselves with material 

 pabulum ;" but in Inch Abbey it has been quarried away. The 

 buttery has disappeared in both abbeys, but in Grey Abbey we have 

 the evidence of its former existence in the line of weathering shewn 

 at the west side of the refectory. The domus conversorum, as de- 

 fined by Mr. Sharp, usually lay along the west side of cloister 

 garth, and was allocated to the use of the conversi of the mo- 

 nastery ; in neither abbey have we any vestige of its existence. The 

 cloister garth in Grey Abbey is oblong; this is somewhat unusual, 

 as the quadrangle is usually found to be a perfect square. Availing 

 myself of the proprietor's permission to make search for some trace 



