126 Anniversary Address. 



domestic buildings have nearly all disappeared, but tlie rude in- 

 equaKties of the ground prove them to have been of considerable 

 extent, as might naturally have been expected in the case of an 

 establishment so opulent in its endowment, and so marked by the 

 favour of the earlier Scottish kings. Of the church itself, Dr. 

 Eaine remarks in his preface to the Surtees papers of 1841 : the 

 north aisle only remains, which is tised as the parish church. The 

 architectural features of this portion of the original church are of 

 a very interesting character. The base is externally Norman, of 

 a somewhat late date. The upper portions of the walls, and in- 

 ternally the whole fabric, are of the Early English period ; and 

 the ornamental parts of these portions will bear a rigid com- 

 parison with the most higlily finished buildings of that most 

 striking style. 



Eecent excavations have proved that the north and east walls 

 are those of the choir of king Edgar's magnificent structure, 

 built over the ruins of the chancel of a former nunnery, the 

 apsidal termination of which was laid bare in clearing out the 

 rubbish. The Heritors of the parish, assisted by Her Majesty's 

 Commissiouers of Woods and Forests, to whom the fabric belongs, 

 have, highly to their honour, lately completed a preservation of 

 this part of the structure, which is used as the Parish Church. 

 The inside has been stripped of the unsightly galleries and pews, 

 which, with the whitewash, concealed the finest part of the work, 

 and by which the beautiful masonry had been mutilated and 

 effaced. On the outside, the earth has been excavated and re- 

 moved from the base of the building, and the incongruous erec- 

 tions, which clustered against the north wall, have been removed. 

 The solid mass of masonry which was btiilt up in 1662, to restore 

 the part destroyed during the Great Eebellion, has been pierced 

 by lancet windows, and the west gable has been rebuilt in uni- 

 formity with the east and north walls. The propriety of thus 

 closing up the choir in the place where the arch once stood, as well 

 as the adoption of a flat roof, may perhaps be questioned ; but so 

 much has been done to improve that it is perhaps unfair to criticise. 

 The architect employed was Mr. W. J. Grray, a native of Colding- 

 ham. The workmanship of the whole has been very well executed, 

 and the general effect of the beautiful Early Enghsh arcade inside 

 is very striking. With the exception of a short period after the 

 demolition of the church by Cromwell, it seems to have been 

 always used as a place of worship. 



