238 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCK LAND. 
[CH. IX. 
The Rev. W. H. Turle says :— 
“ I can remember how thankful we all were when Dean 
Buckland had the pavement in the cloister thoroughly 
repaired, and the gas laid on ; also he had Great Dean’s 
Yard pavement renovated and a new gateway entrance 
built. The whole place was in a shamefully dilapidated 
condition ; the broken stonework of the bays in the 
cloisters was merely held together with bits of wood.” 
The Dean also restored all the pinnacles and buttresses on 
the south side of the Abbey. The monks’ burying-ground 
—the cloister garth, the “ fighting-green ” of Westminster 
School—was turned into a stonemason’s yard for several 
months, so great were the external repairs that were 
needed. Buckland carefully superintended the mason’s 
work, whether external or internal, that was going on in 
the Abbey or in any other collegiate buildings in which he 
was interested ; he examined with his own critical and 
experienced eye the various kinds of cement, the blocks of 
building-stone, and the means adopted to repair and keep 
in order the regal and other monuments ; and, above all, 
he took special care that no faulty bits of stone were used, 
and that no broken pieces of monuments were thrown 
away. 
On one occasion he received a brown-paper parcel 
carefully done up, containing a piece of black oak-wood 
about the size of a match. A letter came with it, 
stating that the writer, when a boy, had cut this off the 
coronation chair in the Abbey, and that, repenting in his 
old age, he returned it in the hope that it might be refitted 
to its old place. Buckland frequently told this story as 
a warning to unscrupulous collectors. At another time he 
