Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-10
FAMOUS ABBEY.
Recent Important Excavations in
Kent

Kent.
From the London Daily Mail.
Recent excavations have brought to
light interesting facts about Lesnes Abb
hey. from which the district of Abbey
Wood, Kent. takes its name.
Lesnes (pronounced Lessnessb, or what
remains Of 1t, lies only few minutes
walk from Abbey Wood station. the
electric tramway cars run within hearing
OF where the old Augustinian canons
used to chant their psalms. But its very
name is unknown here. and it was with
difficulty that got directed to where the
excavations have been made.
The abbey, with its magnificent church.
stood on little rise of gravelly soil
above the low-lying marsh land, which
was Hooded at high tide right up to the
monastic walls. A modern farmhouse
bots lodging probably stood, and within
the old walls OF gray stone. some of
which are built on the foundations Of
the church. cloisters and refectory. are
orchards and fruit lgardens. The whole
fair and peaceful spot. although SO near
to the streets OF shops and little houses.
Lesnes was founded over 100 years ago
by Richard de Lucy. chief justice of
England. who at the end of an active life
assumed the habit of a canon and died
and was buried in his own abbey. Other
benefactors enriched 1t afterward, but
1t did not survive even until the general
dissolution OF the monasteries. for Car
dinal WolSey obtained a bull from the
Pope to suppress it and apply its reve-
nues to his college of Christ Church. The
abbey and its manors then passed
through various hands and now belong
partly to st. Bartholomew Hospital.
partly to Christ's Hospital.
One Of the former Owners Of I.esnoS
was Sir John Hippisley. who in 1920 dis
inferred a stone coffin, with a lead coffin
inside it, which contained the body. mag
nificently appareled. Of an abbot or prior
a bay tree over the tomb. Now there is
huge bay tree to be seen by one Of the
old walls OF the garden, and II has al
ways been supposed that this marks the
high altar Of the church, where the abb
bot would have been buried. DR.. Stukeley,
the antiquary, marked 1t so in 1850.
But Mr.. Vincent. president of the Wool
witch Antiquarian Society. suspected that
a mistake had been made. and the exca-
vations carried out under the society's
auspices have proved that DR.. Stukeley's
supposed church was only the refectory,
while the church itself has been proved
to be an immense building 81 feet in
width and over $50 feet in length.
The excavations have not yet been car
ried to the extreme eastern end, but the
collins have been found, not near the
bay tree at all, but to the south Of the
high altar. Near them were found buried
a. crowbar and a pick of an old pattern
The lord abbot's last resting place had
been rifled, probably after the discovery
nearly 800 years ago, and nothing re-
manned but a few bones, which have
since been reburied.
The excavations have brought to light
some Of the solid masonry of the great
church. The pediments of it's pillars
ma gnificently solid and looking as IL they
had been carved only yesterday, can be
seen at the bottom of the holes dug
round them. and three little chapels, with
the bases OF their stone affairs. There Is
is persisted In. but the Woolwich An
tiquarian Society is not a rich body, and
is obliged to go slowly with its investiga-
tons.