The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-20 00:00:00

INTERESTING DISCOVERIES AT

FOUNTAINS ABBEY.

When the members of the Archm logical Institute
vi sited Fountains Abbey, in the summer of 1846, J. R.
Walbran, Esq., of Ripon, the author of the " History of
GLtinford," announced a discovery he had made, namely,
that the ,Abbot's house was not on the west side of
the abbey, as had always been supposed, but that it
stiiod not far from the Lady Chapel, south-east of
the choir, where the river Shell was arched over
for a 'considerable distance. The place is, or rather
w as, covered with a thicket of underwood and several
tail trees; and it was not supposed that much or any
v mains of it existed. However, during this winter
the present noble owner, the Right Hon. the Earl de
Grey, praiseworthily instructed the steward of the
bbey grounds to re-construct all the broken-down
parts of the fine arches on which the Abbot's house
formerly stood, and under which the river flows. In
doing this, and on reaching a level just above the
perfect parts of the structure, the workmen came to fine
pavements of encaustic tiles, the bases of two rows of
clustered early English columns, and broken Netherdale
marble shafts similar to those now to be seen in the
choir and Lady Chapel. The relics that have been dis-
covered are a silver spoon, weighing about an ounce ;
small silver ornament, with a lion's head in fine re-
lief ; a few unimportant coins; a quantity of lead piping;
bushels of oyster shells, and some coals. One of the
workmen took some of these coals home, and he

rid, when applied to the fire, that they " blaze away
ike a tar barrel." Aye, and companions of these very
cc&e had, no doubt, " blazed away like a tar barrel" in
Mt great hall of the Lord Abbot of Fountains three
centuries ago ! These coals were of the description
called by old people Ralley or Railaye coals, and we
are informed by Mr. Walbran that he has seen several
entries in an old compotus of the house (circa 1456) of
payments for Bailey coals. Most of the objects already
enumerated were found in what had apparently been
the common ash-hole. The remains seem to spread
over an extent not much less than the nave and
choir of the Abbey Church, and, from what has already
been uncovered, it appears that the whole ichnography
of this, important building may yet be retrieved by a
careful excavation. There are remains, over the west
end of the arches, of a dais, the step being ornamented
in front with quatrefoils; and the wall fronting the
Lady Chapel appears to have been decorated with an
arcade of early English columns. Mr. Walbran in-
forms us that the whole of the remains—excepting,
perhaps, some of the tiles—prove that the original
building had been erected at or about the time of the
three Johns, who were Abbots from A.D. 1210 to 1245,
and who built the new choir and Lady Chapel. The
fragments of "Perpendicular" work that occur are,
no doubt, the remains of Abbot Ruby's "new chamber"
1494-1526. It was in a description of where an
homage was done to this man that Mr. Walbran first as-
certained for a certainty that the Abbot's house was on
this site. We congratulate the noble owner that this
important and very interesting discovery has occurred
during the period he is in possession of these celebrated
ruins, because he has always evinced a great desire to
protect them from further decay; and the judicious im-
provements he has lately caused to be effected indicate an
anxious wish, on his part, to retrieve many injudicious
alterations which occurred when the Abbey first became
the property of Mr. Aislabie in the last century.—Dar-
lington and Stockton Times.