On the southern side of this building is a small but
very picturesque and beautiful rain mantled with ivy, which appears to
have been a chapel, and was probably the abbot's private oratory. But
the conventual church itself, which exceeded many cathedrals in extent,
has been levelled nearly to the foundation. This work of havoc was
probably an effect of that general panic which seized the lay-owners of
abbeys, on the attempt made by Queen Mary to restore the monks to their
cloisters.--'For now,' says Fuller, 'the edifices of abbeys, which were
still entire, looked lovingly again on their ancient owners; in
prevention whereof, such as possessed them for the present plucked out
their eyes by levelling them to the ground and shaving from them, as
much as they could, all abbey characters.'
"However, in the month of August 1798, permission having been obtained
from the guardian of the present owner to investigate the foundation by
digging, a very successful attempt was made to retrieve the whole
ichnography of the church, of which there were no remains above the
surface to assist conjecture, or to guide research, but one jamb of the
west window against the wall of the dormitory, a small portion of the
south wall of the nave, a fragment of the south transept, and another
jamb of one of the side chapels eastward from the last.
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