BARDNEY ABBEY was apparently a grass field with a moat; but since then the whole of the great monastic church has been laid bare to the floor pavement, which was about four and a half feet below the surface. The Norman bases of the eight chancel columns and twenty pillars of the nave are now visible, and also of the four large piers which supported the tower arches; these must have been very beautiful, each nave pillar having round a solid core a cluster of twelve, and the tower piers of sixteen, columns. All down the church, which is 254 feet long and over sixty-one feet wide, tombs were found in situ, with inscriptions, the earliest being that of Johanna, wife of John Browne of Bardney, merchant, 1334, and the handsomest that of Richard Horncastel, abbot, 1508, which measures eight feet by four, is seven inches thick, and weighs three tons. This had been already moved, and it is now fixed against the south wall of Bardney church. Adjoining the south side of the nave is the cloister; and the chapter-house, parlour, dormitory, dining-hall, cellar, kitchen, well and guest-house are all contiguous. A little way off are the infirmary-hall and chapel, with three fireplaces and some tile paving. Not much statuary was found, but various carved heads and iron tools, pottery, etc., one headless figure three feet high of St. Laurence and, most interesting of all, the reverse of the abbey seal which was in use in 1348, showing St. Peter and St. Paul beneath a canopy and the half figure of an abbot with crozier below. We know that the obverse had on it a figure of St. Oswald, but that has not yet been found. It is made of bronze or latten.
The huge extent of the buildings and the beauty of the column bases and the plan of this, the earliest of English monasteries, with its moat enclosing the whole twenty-five acres, and its king's tumulus, make a visit to the site very interesting, and the vicar, Rev. C. E. Laing, has worked hard with his four men each year since 1909, and with the help of kind friends has managed to purchase three acres, but is greatly hampered by want of funds, which at present only reach one quarter of the sum required.
Mr. Laing has published a little shilling guide to the excavations at Bardney, with photographs, which explain the work very clearly and show the tombs with their inscriptions. From this it will be noticed that Abbot Horncastel is called on his tomb "Dompnus," i.e., Dominus, and Thomas Clark, rector
