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PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
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The need for the separation of the monks’ choir whether 
that of Austin Canons, or Benedictines (both of whom in turn 
possessed the present Church) was always there ; whether the 
Parish owned the Nave or did not own it. Therefore, the 
Canons’ Church at Leonard Stanley was in no part of it 
originally designed for the Parish, as was that at its sister-cell, 
St Michael, at Ewenny.' It was not necessary here ; and the 
need did not arise for some centuries after the Priory had 
become a Benedictine Cell to Gloucester Abbey. 
It has been advanced by earlier students of the building, 
as evidence of an original parochial division of this Church, 
however, that the Norman door (with xv. cent, insertions) in the 
west wall of the south transept is placed there so as to allow 
the Canons access to their choir without going to the adjoining 
processional door into the nave. It has, however, not been 
noticed by them that there was wanting here the usual 
night-stair from the Dorter leading into the transept of the 
Church. It was, I think, for this more exposed night-access 
to the monks’ choir that the said door was thus situated, 
and therefore its position was not calculated at all with 
regard to the Parish, but rather to the convenience of the 
Canons themselves. The Benedictine monks inherited from 
their predecessors, and did not alter its position. There were 
probably never more than ten monks here ; seldom so many. 
But it is quite likely that invalids and novices from Gloucester 
and Ewyas Harold came here. 
In this connection, then, it is noteworthy that at no time 
in the history of Leonard Stanley did the monks’ dormitory 
become, as usualty was the case, attached by its gable to the 
transept of the Church. The Norman masonry bears no traces of 
any opening passing into the south wall of the transept. This 
fact, together with the non-construction of any north aisle 
to the nave, shows that the Benedictines were of such few 
numbers here that they needed to incur little expenditure on 
alterations of the original, or Canons’, Cloister. This, it will 
be obvious, again points to the fact that here at Leonard 
Stanley they kept, and were long able to keep, in use for the 
parishioners another and older Church upon which alterations 
[ 
Co. Cilamorftian. 
