156 LProc. li.N.l\C.. 



proximity to the sea, and a couple of miles further on we arrived 

 at Greyabbey, where all descended from the vehicles for an 

 inspection of the beautiful ruins. The party was conducted 

 tiirough the remains of the Abbey by the President (Mr. 

 W. J. Fennell, M.R.I. A. I.), who pointed out the vairous 

 features of interest, and informed us that it was founded in 

 the year 1193 by Affreca, daughter of Godred, King of Man, 

 and wife of John De Courcy, who placed in it a contingent 

 of Cistercian monks from the Abbey of Holm, in Cumberland. 

 " It mingled in the burning questions of progress and politics 

 that then, as now, were convulsing the country, as its growing 

 history required reform. It lived, it grew, and had its time 

 of great prosperity in those early days. It saw strange and 

 stormy times, when rapine and disorder, battle and murder 

 raged and tore the very heart of the land. It suffered from 

 plundering hordes, from sacrilege and fire ; and, lastly, it 

 saw the dissolution which ended its work, its hopes, its 

 struggle for man's advancement, its kindly help. Its faults 

 and errors were over, scattered for ever was the great 

 fraternity, and the Cistercian Brotherhood was no more — was 

 ' like a tale that is told. ' Little remains now to tell its 

 history except some portions of the local habitation that have 

 braved the storms of seven hundred years, and have escaped 

 the ignorant hand of the spoiler, and now, ' white with age 

 and hoary with antiquity,' these are kindly cared for and 

 preserved as a record in stone, a monument of a past age, 

 and of the gentle Lady Affreca and the work she founded, 

 and of the place where she was laid with hope of rest.* Her 

 recumbent effigy, with the hands in the attitude of prayer, 

 carved in grey freestone, was erected beside the high altar, 

 but is now in the chancel, beside that of her husband, which 

 has the legs crossed, showing that he had been one of the 

 Crusaders. The buildings which comprise the Abbey bear in 

 their grouping a similarity to the planning of all the houses 

 of this Order, the chief features of which are the cloister garth, 

 a large rectangular garden, round the four sides of which the 

 buildings range themselves, the north side being occupied by 



*Froni a paper on Greyabbey by W. J. Fennell. 



