To this day the outer walls are in places standing, with the water-gate covered with ivy. And inside is the palace, placed amongst its own grounds, surrounded by elms. Above its doorway is cut a canopied niche, where stood the patron saint, the Virgin, and above runs the string-course, supported by its carved corbel-heads. But the whole building has been unfortunately defaced by a moat and turretted wall, built as a defence by one of the Montagues against French privateers, as also by the modernized windows.[90]
The entrance-hall, too, like all the other rooms, has been sadly modernized, though its fine groined roof, springing from four shafts on each side, and a lancet window in the east wall, still remain. Upstairs, also, is left some oak panelling of Henry VIII.’s time, of the linen pattern, but covered over with paint. Eastward, in the meadow adjoining, stands the guest-house, better known in the village, from its former occupants, as Burman’s House. Passing through it, we suddenly come upon the green quadrangle once surrounded with cloisters, where the three arches leading into the chapter-house still remain. The black Purbeck marble shafts, and bands, and capitals, have, however, long since become weather-worn and decayed, though the Binstead and Caen stone still stands, here and there covered with ivy, crested with wall-flowers, and white and crimson pinks, and rusted with lichens.
In the chapter-house are strewed the broken pillars which supported the groined roof, and the broken stone-seats which ran round the inside, whilst on the floor lie a stone coffin and gravestones. To the north of it stand the ruins of the sacristy.
Of the cloisters, the north alley is the most perfect, with its seven carols, where the monks sat and talked; whilst above project the corbels which carried the cloister-roof. Here and there, too, as at the two north doors leading into the church, some of the original pavement still remains.
The church, however, has long since been destroyed. Nothing, except a portion of the south transept, is left. The foundations, though, can be accurately traced, showing the nave and aisles, and the large circular apse at the east end. Scattered about, too, appear the tesselated floor, bright as on the day it was laid down, and the graves of the abbots, and of Isabella, first wife of Richard Earl of Cornwall.[91]
Out in the fields beyond stand the ruins of a building, now a mere pinfold for cattle, called by tradition the Monk’s Vine-Press, whilst the meadows beyond, lying on the slope of the hill, are still known as “the Vineyards.”[92]
But the refectory still remains on the south side of the cloisters, from which a doorway, still ornamented with iron scroll-work, used to lead. Ever since the Reformation it has served as the parish church, differing only in its appearance by its lack of orientation.[93] In 1746 it was repaired, and its original roof lowered, and its fine triplet at the south end spoilt by a buttress, and one of the lancets lighting the wall-passage on the west side also blocked up. Its walls, however, are now covered with common spleenwort, and wall-lettuce, and pellitory, whilst the narrow-leaved rue—the “herb o’ grace o’ Sundays”—with which the old churchyards used to be sown, shows its pale blue blossoms amongst the gravestones.
Pulpit of the Refectory.
Inside it is still more interesting. Here still stands the lovely stone pulpit, its panels rich with flower-tracery, approached by a wall-passage and open arcade springing from double rows of black Purbeck marble pillars. This was the old rostrum of the monks, where one of the brethren read to the rest at their meals; so that, as St. Augustine says, their mouths should not only taste, but their ears also drink in the Word of God. Here, in this very village church, the old Cistercian monks obeyed the injunction of their order[94],—“When we enter, let us bare our heads, and going to our seats bend before the cross. Let us not behave idly, lest we give offence to any one. Let not our eyes wander, lest we give occasion for bickering, or quarrelling, or laughing; but fulfilling the saying of the blessed Hugh of Lincoln, ‘let us keep our eyes upon the table, our ears with the reader, and our hearts with God.’”[95]