248 MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
earlier Norman church than the present one, that of Abbot 
Ernulpli. This was burnt down during the abbacy of John 
de Seez (or Sais), and he it was who built the present choir. 
I am able to throw some light upon another question, the 
probable existence of a crypt under the church. Grunton tells 
us : “ At the south end of the north aisle near the choir is a 
vault descending into the ground by stairs of stone, and at 
the bottom a low arched passage going under the church, 
wherein anyone might go some five or six yards and there 
find the way stopped with the fall of the earth over head; but 
how far further this vault went, or to what end it was made, 
I never could learn. Happily it might lead to some penitential 
purgatorian place; or, like Mortimer's Hole, at Nottingham , be 
a subterraneous passage to some other buildings which are 
now perished.” On this Mr. Paley remarks, “ Similar crypts, 
and in the very same place, exist at Ripon and Hexham. It 
was, without doubt, part of the old Saxon church. In 1817, 
a wall with a subterraneous archway leading towards the 
church was opened at the base of the mound called Tout Hill, 
on the north side of the church. There may have been a 
connection between these two singular and mysterious 
passages.”* 
Following the direction of Grunton, I have had this vault 
excavated. It lies just midway between the north-east and 
north-west piers of the lantern, Gunton meaning by “ the 
south end of the north aisle,” the south end of the north 
transept. It consists of a small entrance chamber and a 
winding passage trending first from south to north and then 
to north-west and west. Portions of a stone pavement, some 
three inches thick, remain in a state of excellent preservation. 
This is at a depth of 5ft. Gin. below the floor of the present 
church. But it is obvious at a glance that this was no part 
of the Saxon building. The walls of the passage and of the 
chamber are of excellent and finished masonry, apparently 
of Early English date, the chiselling of the surface being finer 
than the Norman, and being vertical and not diagonal as in 
the Norman work. The mason’s marks upon the stones, a 
bow and arrow in one place and a triangle in others, are quite 
plain and distinct. The wall on the south side of the 
chamber runs in a straight line east and west, and was kept 
no doubt in a line with, and just behind, the stalls which in 
the old Benedictine Abbey Churches were carried across the 
transepts, the screen being placed in the nave, two bays below 
* Mr. Poole is also disposed to look here for the crypt of the Saxon 
church. See his paper, read at a meeting of the Architectural Societies 
of the Archdeaconry of Northampton, &c., May 23, 1855. 
