The Greater Abbeys of England

ey; it owned extensive landed property, and its superior was a mitred abbot with a seat in the House of Peers. Now only a few ruins remain to mark the place where it stood, whilst, as a curious contrast, Netley over the water, its comparatively humble daughter, stands, as far at least as the church is concerned, almost as perfect as the day when the royal wreckers of the sixteenth century left it to unprotected decay. At Beaulieu the remains include the sacristy and a recess for a cloister cupboard or aumbry; the front of the chapter house with an entrance of three arches; on the east side of the cloister garth the common house; on the west two long buildings standing over undercrofts 285 feet in length and divided by a passage and a wall from the cloister. A range of seven recesses, probably for studies, fills the north wall, and on thesouth are the refectory (125 feet by 30 feet) and the remains of the lavatory. In the wall of the refectory is a charming pulpit, or reading place, with the stairway leading up to it. Of the church little or nothing is left, if we exclude the foundation of the main pillars, which have been uncovered. Besides this there is the main gateway still standing, the watergate, and to the north what is variously called a barn and a winepress. This watergate may, perhaps, suggest some explanation of why so much of the buildings of Beaulieu have disappeared altogether. The abbey was situated on the Beaulieu river, a waterway to the sea ...