hed up to an artificial
mount along the garden wall; that mount and all the terraces of the
pleasure garden, to the back front of the house, are entirely made up of
the sacred _rudera_ or rubbish of continual devastations. Bones of abbots,
monks, and great personages, who were buried in large numbers in the
church and cloisters which lay on the south side of the church, were
spread thick all over the garden, _so that one may pick up whole handsfull
of them every where amongst the garden stuff_." Brayley mentions in his
pleasant History of Surrey, that this artificial mount was levelled in
1810, and its materials employed to fill up a pond. Many human skulls and
bones were found intermixed with the chalk and mortar of which it had been
formed. Fragments of old tiles were also frequently found, and are still
sometimes turned up. No trace even of the "Abbey house" is left; it was
purchased in 1809 by a stock-broker, who in the following year sold the
materials--and so ends the great monastic history of Chertsey. Where are
now its spiritualities in Surrey?--its temporalities in Berkshire and
Hampshire?--its revenues of Stanwell, and rents of assize?--its
spiritualities in Cardiganshire? Alas! they have left no sign, except on
the yellow parchment--of rare value to the antiquary.

Those who desire, like ourselves, to investigate what tradition has
sanctified, will do well to turn down a lane beyond Chertsey Church, which
leads directly to the Abbey bridge, and there, amid tangled hedge rows and
orchards, stands the fragment of an arch, partly built up, and so to say,
disfigured by brick-work, and an old wall, both evidently portions of the
Abbey. In the wall are a great number of what the people call "_black
stones_," a geological formation, making them seem fused by fire. Layers
of tiles were also inserted in this wall, and where the cement has dropped
away they can be distinctly traced; there is also an ivy, very aged
indeed; it is so knotted and thick that it seems to grow through the
stones, the soil has so evidently encroached on the wall that it is most
probably rooted at the foundation. The pleasant market garden of Mr. Roake
covers the actual ground on which the Abbey stood. The workmen frequently
turn up broken tiles and human bones, and there is no doubt that by
digging deeper much would be discovered that might elucidate the history
of the past. At the farther end of the market garden a vault has been
discovered wh