St Radegund's Abbey, Dover

ST. RADEGUND'S ABBEY, DOVER. 189 bhe church, and made a plan of it and of the central buildings of the monastery. This wiU be found in Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XIV. He hinted that there was much more investigation to be done on this highly provocative estate, where fragments of walls above ground and long lines of turf-covered waU foundations everywhere raise problems. Indeed the work of ten diggers for ten weeks at St. Radegund's could not fail to be historicaUy fruitful. What is here offered is an instalment only, carrying on to some degree the admirable work of St. John Hope in 1880. My main aim was to produce a plan of the demesne lands of the Abbey : secondarily to that, I have added two braidings to St. John Hope's plan: and third, I append a few facts about St. Radegund. I. PLAN OF THE ABBEY DEMESNE LANDS. The whole Abbey estate consisted of some 400 acres, about 300 of which were probably farmed for the monastery. The area described was the immediate concern of the monks. Its periphery was nearly a mile (c. 1,720 yards), and roughly in its midst stood the Abbey buildings—church, cloister garth, frater, chapter house, infirmary, etc. (see Arch. Cant., Vol. XIV). To a large extent, especiaUy on the N. and S., the boundaries seem to be of a semi-defensive character, consisting of deep fosses and considerable banks. In the immediate neighbourhood of the monastery big flint waUs completely shut in the precincts. The foUowing description of the accompanying plan begins at the N. where the three ancient tracks, from AUtham, River and Buckland, meet at the entrance. From this a road 100 yards long, defended on either side by an inner ditch, a bank, and an outer ditch, led to the Gate House which spanned the road. We return to the entrance. The north boundary is for some distance the lane to Alkham, inside which (now so overgrown as to be unsuspected) is a deep fosse, with a bank on the inner (or S.) side. At the point where a deep fosse from the Gate House joins it, a deepish fosse with interior bank runs W. of S.W., and then returns a httle W. of S., with a bank inside, until