MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
243 
been four stories in all, and that the fourth was added by the 
next Abbot, Benedict. If so, this central tower must have 
been a lofty structure, and as we know, it snbseqently proved 
too heavy for the main piers on which it rested. I shall advert 
presently to the interesting fact that evidence of the existence 
of three stories in the Norman lantern has been found in 
taking down the 14tli cenntury tower, but no evidence 
of a fourth. And although Mr. Paley not unnaturally in¬ 
ferred the existence of a fourth from the language of Swapliam, 
“ in his time .... three stories of the principal tower 
were erected,” yet there is no mention anywhere, so far as I 
am aware, of the erection of a fourth, and I am inclined to 
think that the fourth was only designed but never erected; 
unless, indeed, the words of the chronicler may be rendered 
(which considering the character of the Latin seems not 
impossible) “ the three stories of the main tower were built.” 
No sooner was the demolition of the 14th century lantern 
begun, than it was seen that the builders of that period had 
worked up the old Norman material in the construction of 
their own tower. On removing the stones of the somewhat 
richly adorned string-course on which the parapet rested, the 
stones composing it were discovered to be mostly the caps 
and bases of the internal arcades of the various stages 
of the old Norman lantern, these being so disposed that 
the original carved faces were turned inwards, whereas the 
ends which had been at first bonded into the wall were 
now exposed and ornamented with the new 14tli century 
moulding. As the work of demolition proceeded, it turned 
out that the mass of the stonework, witli the exception 
only of parts of the belfry window-jambs, was the old 
Norman material re-worked and re-moulded, and (such was 
the excellence of the Barnack stone) as fresh and sharply cut 
as when it was placed in its original position. The walls, 
however, of the lantern were of the poorest possible con¬ 
struction. There was a facing only of the Barnack rag 
varying in thickness from about two to six inches, and the 
whole of the rest of the walls was composed of small frag¬ 
ments, many of them not larger than a man’s hand, embedded 
in rubble and stonednst, or as it is locally called “ pit mortar.” 
Towards the upper part of the lantern the filling in of the 
wall presented curious fragments of earlier and later work, 
bits of decorated carving, pieces of marble shafts—perhaps 
from the west end,—one of the large keeled angle stones from 
the west front which had been placed in the extreme angles 
north and south, and portions of decorated plaster screen 
work, carved, and ornamented with black plaster inlay. There 
