490 Malmesbury Abbey. 



foliated spandrils of the market cross is an inserted stone bearing 

 the griffin segreant on a shield. Then come the three different 

 patterns of the same coat of arms on the tiles in the cloister. 

 Surely this general use of these arms in Malmesbury suggests that 

 they were those of some influential person or body, and the only 

 explanation of their occurrence in all these places is that they 

 were the arms of the abbey. This being so, the initials on the 

 tiles must be read as those of different abbats, and date the com- 

 pletion of various sections of the cloister, namely, W.C. for Walter 

 de Camme, 1360—96 ; W.W. for Abbat William, 1423 ; and T.B. 

 for Thomas Bristol, 1434—56. 



Most of the main walls of the buildings round the cloister had 

 been grubbed up, but a portion of the east wall, a fragment of the 

 north wall towards its west end, and a length of the west wall near 

 its north end, remained. 



Surrounding the cloister were the buildings required for the daily 

 use of the convent, namely, the chapter-house, parlour, dorter, and 

 frater, which, though not arranged on such a fixed plan as with the 

 Cistercians, were still in a regular order of sequence. The chapter- 

 house was always on the east side of the cloister, and the frater on 

 the side opposite the church. 



At Malmesbury the north transept overlapped the cloister some 

 39 ft., and next it northward would be the low passage or parlour 

 leading to the monks' cemetery. 



The Chapter-house. 



The chapter-house would adjoin the parlour, and there was founc 

 a considerable length of the foundation of its north wall ; nothing 

 of the south wall was found, owing to the rock being so near the 

 surface at that place that no foundation was required. Various 

 fragments of Norman character were unearthed, including some 

 vaulting ribs, and it is probable that the room was covered by 

 single spanned vault as at Gloucester, Reading, and other Benedictine 

 houses. William of Colerne " caused the chapter-house as far 

 the walls to be removed and again put up the whole with new 

 timber and covered with stone and alures in the circuit of the 



