
The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland

Benedictine house, former
Benedictine house, former
The Romanesque abbey church was begun by Abbot Baldwin in 1081, and it thus belongs with the massive building boom that followed the Norman Conquest. Its East Anglian contemporaries were Abbot Simeon's Ely Abbey (begun c.1082) and Bishop Herbert de Losingia's Norwich Cathedral (begun 1096). The abbey church had a 4-bay eastern arm with an apsidal east end surrounded by an ambulatory with 3 radiating chapels. Like the post-Conquest church of St Augustine's Canterbury, begun by Abbot Scotland (1070-87), Baldwin's church had a large crypt underlying its eastern arm, so that the sanctuary was raised above the level of the W part of the church. This plan was well-adapted for churches that held relics and attracted large numbers of pilgrims. It allowed the shrines holding the relics to be arranged around the transept and ambulatory and the chapels opening off them, so that pilgrims could venerate the relics without entering the choir.
The eastern arm was complete by 1095 and in that year the body of St Edmund was translated to the new church. Fernie has argued that the original plan was revised to effectively lengthen the eastern arm by one bay at the W, and that this accounts for the eastern aisle of the transept, and the fact that there appear to be doubled crossing piers at the E, corresponding to the end of the eastern arm and to the line of the transept E arcade a bay to the W. It has also been argued that this lengthening of the eastern arm was a response to the details of Herbert de Losingia's ambitious plan for his new cathedral at Norwich. As part of this enlargement, the entire church was widened, so that the nave is some 14 feet wider than the chancel.
Work proceeded westwards, and the lower part of the W front was reached in the abbacy of Anselm of St Saba (1121-48), an Italian and the nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury of the same name. Anselm of St Saba joined the monastery of Sagra di San Michele (Piedmont) as a young oblate and subsequently became Abbot of Saint Saba in Rome, serving twice as a Papal Legate (1115 and 1117) before his election to the abbacy of Bury in 1121. His connections with Sagra di San Michele, where the celebrated sculptor Nicholaus was to carve the Porto dello Zodiaco, have been suggested as a source for features of the surviving Romanesque sculpture at Bury (Zarnecki (1999)). The W front was very wide but not especially tall. The central section, corresponding to the nave and aisles had three arched recesses, similar to Lincoln cathedral. In these were set bronze doors by Master Hugo, artist of the Bury Bible (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 21). Flanking the central block were two-storey chapels dedicated to Saint Denis (below) and St Faith (above) on the N side, and to St John the Baptist and St Catherine on the S. The facade terminated at either end with an octagonal tower. Abbbot Anselm also built the Norman Tower, whose elaborate carvings give some idea of the splendid original decoration of the W front of the abbey church.
The south side of the west tower fell in 1430, and in 1431 the east side followed. The north side was demolished in 1432. A papal bull granting indulgences for the repair of the `clocher' estimated the cost of repair at 60,000 ducats. Wills of 1457-8, 1460 and 1465 provided money for the fabric of the new tower. Repair work continued until 1465, when the church was seriously damaged by a fire which started in the west tower. More extensive repair work was undertaken, and in 1506 a western spire was completed. After the Dissolution in 1539 most of the church was soon reduced to ruins. What remained of the west front was the rubble core of the three main arches flanked by a smaller arched opening on either side and with an octagonal tower at the southern end. Domestic structures were built into the dilapidated west front in the 17thc., and records show that they were altered several times in the following centuries. In 1863 the S end had become a Registrar's Residence with a Probate Registry in the S tower.
The earliest excavation of the site was by Edward King in 1772-86, and in 1865 Gordon Hills published an account of the abbey written for the British Archaeological Association's visit in the previous year. This was described by Whittingham (1952) as 'the most authoritative account of the site' then available. A documentary study of the library and the fittings was produced by M. R. James (1895). Between 1928 and 1933 a programme of clearance and restoration of the ruins was undertaken by the Bury Corporation and the Ministry of Works, and in 1952 Arthur Whittingham produced his own assessment, including a plan of the site. An excavation of the eastern arm was carried out in 1957-64 by the Ministry of Works under the direction of A. D. Saunders and M. W. Thompson of the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, resulting in the clearance of the eastern end of the abbey church to its original floor levels, and consolidation of the masonry (see Gilyard Beer (1970)). A programme of conservation and stone replacement was undertaken in 1999-2000, and in 2004-06 the west front was converted into a row of houses with rear gardens. A Heritage Assessment was produced in 2018 by Richard Hoggett Heritage that usefully sums up the history of investigation on the site. As part of the present investigation, access has been gained to several of the West Front properties, and we are most grateful to the residents for welcoming us into their homes.
The ruins to the east of the west front contain very little ashlar, although a few well-preserved bases of the roll and hollow chamfer type may be seen and are illustrated here. Within the west front are a few carved stones, described below, and further abbey stones are preserved at Moyses Hall, in the English Heritage store at Wrest Park, and in the British Museum (see Comments below)
Benedictine house, former
What survives of the 12thc. work is the nave of two bays with a W doorway and a S aisle arcade, and the crossing with N and S transepts. In the 1340s, when the 12thc. church was converted into private apartments for the Countess of Pembroke, a floor was inserted just below the level of the crossing capitals and the crossing arches were blocked. At the same time the S aisle wall was removed and a new wall built further S, to convert the area into a guest range with an upper hall. The 12thc. work recorded here consists of the crossing arches, the W doorway, the S nave arcade, the windows of the nave and N transept, and an arch in the E wall of the N transept, presumably leading to a chancel aisle originally. Its counterpart in the S transept is largely obliterated by the insertion of a window during the farmhouse phase of the site's history, but its presence is attested by the N jamb and the outer relieving arch, both visible on the E face.
Benedictine house, former
The priory was originally isolated on a headland overlooking the Mersey, but is now entirely hemmed in by what remains of the shipyard graving docks and by a recently built industrial estate. A promenade has been built along the waterside, offering splendid views of Liverpool across the river, but no part of the priory is visible from this.
The original foundation is attributed to Hamo de Masci, 3rd Baron of Dunham Massey c.1150, but Pevsner prefers a slightly later 12thc. date. What remains is the cloister, without its arcades, and some of the surrounding monastic buildings. It lay to the N of the church, and of this only fragments of the N walls survive. To the E of the cloister square stands the chapter house, of red sandstone, the only part of the original foundation to survive. It is a simple rectangular building of two rib-vaulted bays, preserving only one of its original side windows - a completely plain splayed opening in the S wall of the E bay. The W front has the usual arrangement of a doorway flanked by windows, but these are completely plain and are not described in this report. A second storey was added to it in the 14thc., now called the Scriptorium, although Pevsner doubts whether that was its function. In the N range stands the 14thc. vaulted undercroft of the refectory, and to the W the 13th-14thc. buildings of the guest hall and prior's lodging.
The priory was bought by public subscription in 1896, and Birkenhead Borough Council took responsibility for it. It was restored 1896-98, and the chapter house restored from 1913-19, when it was dedicated as a chapel. Romanesque sculpture is found in the vault supports of the chapter house. This picture is confused by the presence on the same site of the remains of St Mary's church. The church, by Thomas Rickman (1819-21) was built as part of F. R. Price's plan to develop the town as a resort. It was enlarged by the construction of transepts in 1832-35, but closed in 1971 and all except the tower demolished four years later. This remains as a viewpoint.
Benedictine house, former
Only a section of walling survives from the abbey church itself. Fragments of the 13thc. chapter house, the free-standing early 16thc. bell-tower and the gateway otherwise remain. The lower part of the gateway is built of stone, and of 12thc. date, the upper parts, probably dating from the 15thc., are timber-framed. Romanesque sculpture is found in the gateway arch (see para. III.1(i) below); some fragments in the museum may also come from the Abbey (see Evesham, Museum).
Benedictine house, former
Nothing of the abbey church remains in situ, and the surviving abbey buildings all postdate the 12thc. In the Abbey Gardens, where the church once stood, is an artificial ruin constructed of fragments from the site. Reset in the S wall of this are the voussoirs described below.
Benedictine house, former
A simple three-cell building of nave, chancel
and semicircular apse without tower or belfry. There is
a chancel arch and the remains of an apse arch.
Construction is of herringbone and rubble masonry with
brick repairs. The nave has been heightened, and the upper levels are of small,
uneven ashlar blocks. Brick buttresses have been added to the N side of the
nave, and a large brick doorway on the S must date from its conversion to a
barn.
Benedictine house, former
After the suppression of Battle Abbey in 1538, the church and most of the monastic buildings were demolished. Today, only the Great Gate, abbot's lodgings, guest range and dorter survive above ground level, but the footings of other buildings have been exposed.
The Abbey, situated on sloping land on the site of the battlefield where William of Normandy defeated King Harold in 1066, had a standard Benedictine layout. The church, erectedc.1070-1094, had a short choir terminating in an ambulatory with three radial chapels, followed by a broad crossing tower, single-bay transept arms with apsidal chapels, and an aisled nave of seven bays. It has been suggested (Hare 1985, 20) that this was the first English church to have an ambulatory with radiating chapels. In the late 13thc. the choir was greatly enlarged and some time later the S transept apse was replaced, but otherwise the late 11thc. building seems to have survived more or less intact until 1538.
The cloister was located to the south of the church but, beginning with the chapter-house, the claustral buildings were entirely rebuilt on a larger scale in the 13thc. The 11thc and 12thc. claustral buildings were small, but it is known that Abbot Walter de Luci (1139-71) began to rebuilt the cloister walks 'with pavement and columns of marble, polished and smooth', and had planned a lavatorium before death interrupted his scheme. The abbot's lodgings in the west range were converted into a country house after the Dissolution and are now Battle Abbey School. At right angles to that are the remains of the guest range, which was rebuilt after the Dissolution but demolished in the mid-18thc. The 13thc. dorter, on the E side of the cloister, was unroofedc.1800. Nothing of the infirmary, which possibly lay on E side of the cloister, survives.
The townspeople, who worshipped in the nave, entered the precinct through the Great Gate, located to the NW of the church and rebuilt in the 14thc. The 16thc. 'courthouse' to E of the gatehouse seems to have replaced an earlier almonry.
The only Romanesque carvings to survive in situ are three early capitals which belonged to buildings incorporated within the E and W sides of the Great Gate, and two capitals on the W façade of the abbey church. Loose fragments retrieved during the excavations of the 1930s, 1978-80 and 1999 are stored at Dover Castle (Kent), Fort Brockhurst (Hampshire), Fort Cumberland (Hampshire) and Battle Abbey (see separate site entries). Several published fragments could not be located for Corpus recording (summer 1999).
Benedictine house, former
The abbey was begun in 1121 under the patronage of Henry I, the choir of the church must have been complete by January 1136, when Henry was buried there. It was dedicated by Archbishop Becket in the presence of Henry II in 1164, by which time it must have been substantially complete. A Lady Chapel was added at the E end in 1314 by Abbot Nicholas of Whaplode (1305–28). More details of the history of the abbey will be found in section VII below.
The earliest record of the dismantling of the abbey dates from 1548, when an estimate of the volume of lead on the roof was made. From the following year we have a set of accounts kept by George Hynde, an official in the service of the Court of Augmentations, giving details of receipts of money from people buying pieces of the abbey fabric, payments to carpenters and labourers who worked in the demolition, and expenditure for such materials as ropes, chisels and crowbars. At about the same time as this piecemeal disposal of second-hand building material and, shortly afterwards, three major building projects benefitted from the availability of the abbey fabric. Between 1550 and 1553 the Parish Church of St Mary's, Reading was rebuilt, and the churchwardens' account reveal that the choir of the abbey church was taken down at this time; piers were removed and reused in St Mary's; timber and lead were stripped from the roofs and other fabric including a rose window, the cloister door and various loads of stone and tiles were taken away for the rebuilding. For the construction of the Poor Knights' Lodging near St George's Chapel, Windsor around 1557, Caen stone was taken from the abbey by water, and to judge from the accounts the masons concentrated on 'the greate stones of the dores and windowes in the Chappell of our Lady', and on stones (presumably ashlar blocks) dug out of the walls. In 1562, Queen Elizabeth granted the the mayor and burgesses of Reading the right to remove 200 loads of stone from the abbey for the repair of 19 ruinous bridges in the borough.
By the end of the 16thc., then, the cloister arcade was gone, the church was roofless and probably lacked most of its choir. Most of the Lady Chapel may still have been standing, although ashlar had been removed from its walls and window and door surrounds. In 1643 Reading was the site of an action in the Civil War which had further serious effects on the abbey. The town was held for the king by Sir Arthur Aston, with 3,000 men and 300 horse. The garrison was beseiged for ten days by a Parliamentary force of 16,000 men and 3,000 horse, under the Earl of Essex. Defensive works were raised, consisting of a rampart with a ditch running across the cloister from S to N, terminating in a hornwork which occupied a large part of the nave of the church. Stone for the construction of the rampart came, of course, from the abbey, and further damage was caused during the ten days of bombardment necessary to obtain the surrender of the town.
The only record of note relating to the destruction of the abbey during the 18thc. dates from 1754, when General Conway used stone from the abbey to build a bridge at Park Place, Henley. In 1831 a building scheme was proposed which would have destroyed the ruins completely. This involved using the materials of the abbey for road-building. The scheme was rejected by the town council, and in its place a public subscripton was raised to buy the remaining portions of the ruins for the town. This did not put an end to the destruction, however, because the construction of both the Roman Catholic church of St James (opened in 1840) and the new County Gaol (in 1843) involved demolition of parts of the abbey fabric (the N transept and what remained of the choir and Lady Chapel respectively). Since the 19thc. restoration and consolidation of the standing remains has periodically been carried out, and a degree of legal protection was gained in 1914 when they were scheduled as an ancient monument.
In 2003 Reading Borough Council was awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore the Victorian character of the Forbury Gardens and to continue the specialist conservation work on the ruins. The work will mainly be done in 2004, with a completion target of 2005. The plan of the church has recently been elucidated by Stuart Harrison and the present author, on the basis of the standing remains, the surveys of H. Englefield (1789), J. C. Buckler (1823–24), F. Albury (1880) and the Ordnance Survey (1875); and the excavation of C. Slade at the E end (1971–73). It had a nave of nine bays, an unaisled transept with two E chapels on either arm, the inner S chapel (known as the Founder's Chapel) being deeper than the others. The presbytery had three straight bays with an ambulatory and three radiating chapels. In effect, both the nave and the presbytery are a bay longer than the description implies because of the elongation of the crossing piers to E and W.
Standing remains: S transept and presbytery:
Only a fragment of this once-great abbey has survived. The main body of the S transept is the most substantial part of the church that has survived and it retains substantial evidence for the articulation of the walls. The main surviving elements are a large part of the W wall and part of the S wall. These walls are massive and impressive but it should be borne in mind that they have lost at least half of their original height. The ashlar has largely been stripped but in the lower parts, which have not been conserved it is possible to read the robbed core and recover details of the design. The outline of the main ashlar blocks can easily be observed, to the extent that with a technique such as photogrammetry it would be possible to recover the precise jointing and possible to recognise individual variations that might show building breaks.
The differences in wall plane are reflected in the depth of the robbing and these show that the transept was divided into three bays. From the SW corner, where the low course of ashlar survives, the details of the W wall show that the three bays were divided by wide pilasters of three orders and the central section of each of the two S bays was deeply recessed and pierced with a very large window. This arrangement suggests that these recesses formed giant order arches that framed the windows. Unfortunately the surviving walling is of insufficient height to show positively if this was the case. The remains of the windows show that they employed several orders of shafts and presumably arch mouldings in the heads but unfortunately though the remains are very tall no trace of the arch heads remains. Internally there are small remains of ashlar bases at sill level. A horizontal robbing shows that these stood on a string course. The N bay has a different form of articulation because it adjoined the S nave aisle. Here the S respond of the arch into the nave aisle survives, though robbed, together with the springing of the arch it carried. This is notably of stilted form. In the S wall of the transept the robbed core clearly shows that the bay articulation of the W wall was repeated with a central pilaster and a recess at each side. There are no traces of windows because of the three-storey slype to the S but presumably windows were provided in the lost uppermost part of the wall.
The eastern side of the transept retains part of the eastern apse of the Founder's Chapel together with part of its forebay. It adjoined the S aisle of the presbytery where the wall retains evidence for the height of the aisle respond piers and the springing for the vaults in the robbed corework. To the W side of the remaining vault springing there is a small section of two courses of ashlar walling which abut and retain the curve of the vault web but also another curve on its W edge which indicates that it abutted another arch on that side. This, and the recess in the wall core, suggests that the aisle bays featured large arched recesses that framed the windows. Opposite this aisle respond is the surviving circular presbytery pier base. Only the S half is visible clearly showing a half-cylindrical attached shaft towards the aisle. The evidence in the S presbytery aisle wall also shows the robbed outline of a similar shaft, six metres high.
In the Founder's Chapel the windows are large and retain stepping for the multiple orders of the jambs and arch heads, suggesting that they were considerably embellished. The remains of the responds at the entrance to the apse show multiple stepping, indicating numerous orders to the shafts; two on the W side and four on the east. On the E side some of these are angled to accommodate the curve of the apse wall. The S respond has a cut-back stone at the arch springing which must have been the tail-stone of the capital abacus. The intermediate responds set around the apse, which must have carried ribs for vaulting are also of several orders which suggest that the recessed arches observed in the presbytery aisles were also featured in the chapel. That this was the case is confirmed by three courses of ashlar vault web above the N respond of the apse, on its W side. This is set so far N into the wall that it must have been associated with a deep arched recess. On the S wall a small fragment of ashlar retains a curved abutment for the vault on its east side with two narrow tapered courses of ashlar vault web and on the W side a curved edge for the abutment to the arched recess. Externally the chapel retains a deep robbing, nearly a metre high for a large plinth course and at the base of the windows another for a string course. The surviving robbing of the plinth shows that it was composed of seven courses of stone. The buttresses are marked by broad stepped projections in the corework with a narrower angle buttress between the chapel and the S presbytery aisle wall. The surviving window heads and jambs are articulated in stepping for two external nook shafts and arch orders.
To the S of the Founder's Chapel there are the low remains of another which did not project as far to the east. Sufficient remains on its N ern side to show that the apse was divided into three bays like the Founder's Chapel and also featured a deep wall recess. Its S wall has a large squared rubble base for a massive stair turret that gave access to the upper parts of the church and the treasury above the slype.
N transept:
The N transept retains a small section of its W wall and a massive collapsed articulated section of walling at its N W corner. This has evidently fallen from the superstructure and lies tilted over at an angle. Unfortunately it retains no features that could add to the details of the building. In the back garden of the Priest's House of St James's Church a large section of the N presbytery aisle wall stands to a considerable height. Though largely robbed of ashlar it retains a single base for a semicircular respond shaft on its S side. This base has angle spurs and stands on a wall bench. The quality of carving is extremely good and the ashlar joints very fine. North of this is the inner chapel of the transept and this is of polygonal plan with the lowest courses of ashlar in situ. These indicate the former presence of single shafts at the angled intersections of the canted walls of the chapel. The deep robbing above the ashlar strongly indicates the former presence of arched recesses in the main walls. The adjoining N chapel has been overbuilt by an extension to the Priest's House.
Nave and crossing:
The remains of the nave are restricted to part of the eastern bay of the S aisle wall and the SW crossing pier. The aisle wall retains the E cloister processional doorway that was an arch of great magnificence, to judge from the stepped robbing of the jambs and head that are present on both sides. It is set into a projecting frame of masonry in order to accommodate the depth of the doorway. Small sections of ashlar remain at the bottom including worn bases on the N–W side.
Above the doorway and set to E of it is a window that has lost its arch head. It retains worn bases for jamb shafts on the exterior. Its unusual position is related to the internal bay spacing and the vaulting over the first nave aisle bay. The SW crossing pier is so large that it extends well into the nave and because of this the vaulting had to be adjusted. On its W side it retains the main arcade respond base which has a semicircular moulded base standing on a tall polygonal sub-base. This suggests that like the presbytery piers, those of the nave were also cylindrical. The sheer size of the crossing piers suggests that they were intended from the start to carry a substantial high tower. This, following the usual Romanesque pattern, would probably have comprised a large open lantern, to light the monks' choir below and a belfry stage above. The S respond of the arch into the transept from the S nave aisle remains as a robbing with indications of multiple shafts. The capitals were set at the same height as those in the presbytery, six metres high, and indicate that the nave arcades retained the same proportions as the eastern arm. The arch springing above is stilted, showing that it must have been round-headed and on the W side retains the curve of the vault web. This has a distinct flat along its angled face indicating the former presence of a vault rib.
Cloister and monastic buildings:
The cloister occupies the angle between nave and S transept, the surviving doorway at the E end of the S nave aisle communicating with its NE angle. All traces of the cloister arcading had already vanished when Stewkley drew it in 1721, and indeed evidence from the accounts published by Preston (1935) suggest that it was entirely demolished in 1549. The central area is now occupied by a formal garden. The E walk is occupied by the slype, the chapter house and the dormitory range, which extends S beyond the cloister square, its W wall continuing the line of the E walk as far as the rere dorter which survives in a ruinous state on the N bank of the Kennet. On the S walk is the refectory. Nothing of the W range survives.
Slype:
Adjoining the S transept is the slype, a long narrow passage that was formerly covered by a barrel vault. Only the springing remains in the sidewalls with traces of the floor above on the S side. Here there are the lowest courses of the ashlar facing which may represent a bench. At a higher level there is a second springing for the vault that covered the treasury at first-floor level. It has been assumed in the past that this was also a barrel vault but the evidence on the N wall suggests that it may have been of quadrant form. Above the treasury the upper level of the S transept retain traces of an external buttress at its SW corner.
Chapter House:
The chapter house was one of the most imposing buildings in the abbey. It was entered from the cloister through a central doorway that is flanked by two round-headed windows. These have lost their original sills and much of the jamb detail has been lost in clumsy conservation. No doubt they and the doorway featured numerous orders of shafts on their jambs, features which are reflected in the stepped outlines of their robbed arch heads. Some form of plate tracery probably subdivided them. Above the doorway and flanking window there is a tier of three windows, which have stepped robbing to their jambs and arch heads. The central window was apparently taller and though the arch head has been lost, this is confirmed by several antiquarian drawings.
Internally the room is very wide and retains traces of the wall benches on the sidewalls. It was divided into four bays, up to the chord of the apse by large pilasters. These remain as undulations in the wall cores and were over a metre wide. The main span was covered by a large barrel vault that Englefield said employed tufa to lighten the loading. It was decorated with transverse ribs springing from the pilasters and traces of these still remain as marks in the surviving vault springing. The barrel vault stopped at the chord of the apse where it was finished with a vertical east face. Around the eastern apse there are traces of four pilaster responds that are narrower than those which articulated the barrel vault in the side walls. They must have carried ribs that sprang up to converge on a central point against the east face of the barrel vault. There was a string course on which stood large windows in each apse bay. One survives relatively intact and shows that they were round-headed and of three stepped orders with jamb shafts. The height they rise shows that the cells of the apse vault were steeply ploughshared in form to avoid the window heads.
There is no trace of the internal wall arcades that were often a feature of large Romanesque chapter houses. Had they ever been present they would surely have left evidence of the voussoirs in the wall cores, which show only level bedded horizontal coursing. It may be that the walls were simply painted with arcades or that they were decorated with chevrons and other similar abstract patterns, like the chapter house at Bristol. Externally the apse was articulated by buttresses, centred with the internal responds that were just over a metre wide. There was a plinth nearly a metre deep that must have had multiple stepping or chamfered courses.
Dormitory range:
S of the chapter house the site slopes quite steeply and the S wall retains the scars for a vaulted passage through the range. High up in the chapter house S wall there is a doorway that seems to give access to a small chamber within the thickness of the wall. The E wall of the range has completely gone but the ground floor of the W wall is relatively intact. It has been badly consolidated so that it presents a virtually uniform pattern of flint facework. The sloping ground level suggests that the range must have been terraced with additional vaulted cellarage towards the S, so that it was two storeys at the N end and three at the S. There is no trace of there ever having been any sort of passage over the chapter house vault to a night stair into the S transept and it must have been the case that the monks walked through the cloister from the dormitory to the church. The W wall of the range retains part of a mural stair, in the thickness of the wall that may have given access to the dormitory. The stair rose up and gave access to a room on the first floor of the S range and from there through another doorway up into the dormitory. This arrangement may have served as both a day and night staircase. Similar mural daystairs are known from Chester Abbey and St Mary's Abbey at York.
Refectory:
The refectory was a large building occupying the main part of the S range of the cloister. It was separated from the E range on the ground floor by a through passage or dark entry. Antiquarian drawings show that the refectory walls were covered in two tiers of arched wall arcades. Little now survives of this once splendid building except at the E end where a small section of the S wall remains. It shows that in contrast to the church that was wholly built in ashlar, the refectory was built in rubblestone and flints. Traces of the lower wall arcade remains where the voussoirs and capitals have been extracted from the walls to leave ragged arched chases. There are some small traces of the upper arcading but they are very slight.
Other buildings:
Outside the monastic enclosure, part of the Hospitium of St John survives behind the Town Hall. To the S of the monastic enclosure, the Abbey Mill straddles the Holy Brook. These have separate entries in the database. Finally there is the Inner Gateway of the abbey, which now stands on Abbot's Walk. In its present state it is the work of a restoration by Sir George Gilbert Scott which began in 1860 and was completed only in 1900 by the carving of various heads, animals and foliage capitals.
Romanesque sculpture:
Sculpture on the site is confined to stones which have been reset in various parts of the ruins. These are described in section IV.5.c below. The bulk of the Reading Abbey material is in Reading Museum and Art Gallery, but other stones are in St Lawrence's churchyard, the Forbury Gardens, the Hospitium of St John, St James's RC church, the covering of the Holy Brook, and 35 London Street (all Reading), and at St Andrew's, Sonning.