The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-05-29
ANCIENT ABBEY RUIN
IS UNCOVERED
Excavations Made on Site of
LeSneS Abbey, Founded
700 Years Ago.
TREE MARKS OLD GRAVE
MONASTERY SUPPRES SED AT
INSTIGATION OF WOLSEY.

London. May 2s.-Recent excava-
tons have brought TO light interest
ing facts about Lesnes abbey, from
which the district of Abbey Wood,
Kent, takes its name.
Lesnes pronounced Lessness). or
what remains of it, lies only a few
minutes walk from Abbey Wood sta
ton; the electric tramway cars run
within hearing of where the old Au-
gustinian canons used to chant their
psalms. But its very name is IN
known there, and it is with difficulty
that one can get directed to where
the excavations have been made
The abbey, with its magnificent
church, stood on a little rise Of grav-
ely soil above the low lying marsh
land, which was flooded at high tide
right up to the mOnastic walls. A
modern farmhouse stands where the
gate house or the abbOts lodging
probably stood, and within the old
walls Of gray stone, some Of which
were built on the foundations Of the
church, clOisters and refectory, are
orchards and fruit gardens. The
whole is backed BY a hanging wood,
and it is a fair and peaceful spot, al
though so near 70 the streets of shops
and little houses.
Founded 200 Years Ago.
Lesnes was founded over zoo 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 en-
riched il afterwards, but 1t did not
survive even undl after the general
dissolution of the mOnastries, for
Cardinal Wolsey obtained a bull from
the pope TO suppress IT and apply It's
revenues to his college of Christ
Church. The abbey and It's manOrs
then passed through various hands
and now belong partly to St. Bar
tholomew's hospital, partly to Christ
hospital
One of the former owners of Lesnes
was Sir John Hippisley, who in 1920
disinterred a stone coffin, with a lead
coffin inside it, which contained the
body, magnificently appareled, Of an
abbot or prior of the abbey. He re-
buried it and planted a bay tree over
the tomb. Now there is q. huge bay
tree to be seen by one Of the old
walls Of the garden, and it has always
been supposed that this marks the
high altar of the church, where the
abbot would have been buried Dr.
StukeIey. the antiquary, marked it SO
in 1850.
Finds Mistake Is Made.
But Mr.. Vincent, president of the
Woolwich Antiquarian society, sus-
pected that a mistake had been made,
and the excavations carried out I'M
der the society's auspices have proved
that Dr.. Stukeley's supposed church
was only the refectory, while the
church itself has been proved 70 b'
an immense building sixty-seven feet
in width and over $50 feet in length
The excavations have not yet been
carried 10 the extreme eastern end
but the collins have been found, not
near the bay tree at all, but TO the
south Of 4 e high altar. Near them
were found buried a crOWbar and Z
pick Of an old pattern. The lord alb
bots last resting place had beer
rifled, probably after the discovery
nearly three hundred years ago, and
nothing remained but a few bones
which have since been reburied-
Solid Masonry Uncovered.
The excavations have brought t.
light some of the solid masonry Of
the great church The pediments. o.
its pillars, magnificently solid and
locking as If 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 a good deal more TO b'
found if the work is persisted in, bu
the Woolwich Antiquarian society l.
not a rich body, and Is obliged TO e
slowly with its Investigations.
now Srrr-p1=sN SITS ron FlT-ST