perpendicular window and quaint openings.  The western portion, built mainly of timber, with here and there the remains of carving, and a diaper imprinted on the plaster, contains the great fireplace, clearly indicated on this side by the mass of solid stonework.  Turning the corner into Little Abbey Lane we come to the yard at the back, and we may be allowed to view the interior of the Almoner’s kitchen, which still retains some of its primitive character.  From this apartment a passage runs through the entire length of the building, and this was no doubt originally continued, forming a communication with the main buildings of the Monastery.  In the corner of the courtyard, beneath a brick gable which is mere modern patchwork, the passage takes an abrupt turn, and in the angle is placed a curious “lantern” of stone, which, from its character, may very probably be the work of the Gloucester school of masons of the fifteenth century.  The proper position and use of this curious relic is only guessed at.  The chambers below are said to have served the purpose of a prison at one time, the prisoners’ food being placed in the lantern, and taken by the unfortunate inmates through the hatch cut in the wall behind.  The passage is continued from this corner to the outer wall of the building where it abruptly terminates in a screen of modern construction.  If we go farther round this block into the garden we shall come to another cottage, and in the front room we may see a well-carved fireplace ornamented with five quatrefoils.  It is composed of the oolite stone used for all the finer and more important work in the Monastery, but has been lately painted, with unfortunate result.  Beyond a partition is a beautifully carved fragment which would seem to have formed part of an elaborate shrine or chantry, but now serves as the lintel of the scullery window.  Overlooking the garden in which we stand as we leave the door is the gable end of a plain rectangular building, now cottages, but formerly the Abbot’s stables.

One more relic completes the list of the remains of the “late Abbey,” as Leland pathetically alludes to that important establishment.  Walking across the Green we see before us an old stone porch embattled above, and behind it a plain building of two storeys.  This was the Grammar School of Abbot Lichfield, and his inscription over the door may still be deciphered, “ORATE PRO ANIMA CLEMENTIS ABBAT.”  The schoolhouse is of timber, and has been little altered, except that the front is spoiled by the substitution of brick for wood and plaster; the ornamental battlement on the porch is also of recent date.

For more than a hundred years after the destruction of the noble pile the site was used as a stone quarry, and fragments may be found in almost all the older houses in the town, and in many farm buildings in the neighbourhood.  There is hardly an old garden near that has not some carved stones of curious shape recognisable by the antiquary as having once formed part of a shaft, a window, or an archway of the proud Abbey.  Of these scattered fragments the most important is the lectern of alabaster, Romanesque in style, now, after long misuse and neglect serving its original purpose in the church of Saint Egwin at Norton, a village lying nearly three miles to the north of the town.  A description of this relic will be found in the last section of this work.