REPOIIT. 
21 
or extend Ids observations on tlic arrangements of monastic 
Institutions. 
The remains of the Abbey Church have long been admired, 
as exhibiting one of the most beautiful examples of Gothic 
Architecture in its purest style ; but it was little suspected 
that, under the elevated platform of the Manor Shore, had 
been buried, for two centuries, the entire ground plan of the 
Monastery belonging to that Church ; that there existed in 
that concealment, unmoved and undisturbed from tlieir place, 
W'alls and columns, and the bases of buttresses and gateways ; 
here, the steps of a staircase and the glazed tiles of a 
pavement; and there, a spacious fire-place still standing, with 
its sculptured corbels ; in one place, the richly carved pillars 
and circular fragments of a Norman arch, and in another, a 
knot or a keystone of still more elaborate workmanship, from 
some vaulted roof of a later date. 
These discoveries having been first made in excavating the 
foundations of the new Museum, they were further prosecuted 
by a private subscription ; and care was taken on the part of 
the Society, that, as they proceeded, a plan should be drawn, 
and accurate admeasurements should be made, of every part 
of the remains. The finished character of the architecture, 
exhibiting some very elegant specimens of the style in use 
during the early part of the fourteenth century, together 
with some ornamented examples of that which belonged to 
the more ancient Monastery, founded by William Rufus; the 
interest, also, attached in other respects, to the long concealed 
relics and unrecorded plan of so great and powerful an 
