these must have formed part of some building of more recent date which was not one of those deemed to be superfluous. The western block of the existing house is exactly such a building as meets these requirements. The ground floor formed the "new hall," the hall above it "the new dining chamber," while the "new kitchen" and its appendages formed the ground story of the destroyed west wing. This opened directly into the screens at the south end of the hall, whence the stair in the south-east corner enabled the service to be readily extended when necessary to the dining chamber above.

As the accommodation afforded by the three blocks forming the prior's lodging must have been somewhat in excess of what was needed by himself and his household, it may be concluded that he also lodged here, as was usual, persons of quality who were the guests of the monastery. The ordinary guests of the middle class would of course be housed by the cellarer in the old hall and the chambers forming the "hall side."

The canons' infirmary has yet to be sought for, either eastwards of their cloister, which is the more likely place, and where there is plenty of room for it, or south of their chapel.

One other point on which light is wanted is the way by which the canons went from their cloister to the great church, where their quire was in the south aisle. If the "hall side" stood where suggested in the plan the canons might have left the cloister by the entry under the little chapel, and traversed a pentise extending along the hall end and "hall side" and thence to the south-east angle of the church and round to a doorway in the south wall. We have of course no evidence of this course, but it is not easy to suggest a simple alternative, and in view of the fondness for pentises in religious houses it may have been that actually adopted. The space between such a pentise and the nuns' cemetery wall would serve for the canons'

cemetery.

The Survey makes no mention of any building that could have been used by the conversi, and there is no accommodation for them in the canons' cloister. Possibly

by the time the latter was rebuilt the conversi, as among the Cistercians, had given place to hired servants who for the most part lived at the granges. If any such were lodged in the priory their quarters have yet to be found.

The outer court of the priory must have been on the north, and the entrance to it on the west where the lane now called the Avenue abuts on the precinct. There are no remains of the gatehouse nor of any of the buildings, such as the stables, bakehouse, brewhouse, etc. that usually stood in the outer court. The only building now on the site is a long range of stabling, etc. standing east and west, to the north of the present house, and known locally as the Nunnery. It is a picturesque two-storied structure with four-centred doorways and square-headed windows, built entirely of brick and roofed with tile, but is apparently of a date subsequent to the suppression of the priory.

The north side of the outer court is bounded by a running stream, which rises somewhere to the northwest, and also furnished a branch that once formed the western boundary of the precinct. After traversing the north side it bends southwards at a right angle and passes under the building described above through a wide archway. It reappears a few yards south of this, but after skirting the base of an old wall for about 130 feet it is covered over and runs through a stone tunnel beneath the canons' buildings, finally emerging from under the south end of the present house. It thence continues southwards and discharges into another stream which bounds the precinct on the south along Church Lane.

Previous to the building of the western block of the prior's lodging the stream was open there, and spanned by a bridge. This was not destroyed when the block was added, but the parapets were removed and the bridge utilised as part of the tunnel. measures 10 feet across, with a span of 11 feet, and is ribbed beneath in a manner characteristic of the fourteenth century, to which period it belongs.

It

The fate of the priory buildings at the Suppression is not easy to make out. It is clear from a letter addressed to Cromwell on 18th March, 1539-40, by

Robert Holgate, bishop of Llandaff, who held the priory in commendam, and surrendered it in December, 1539, that he had applied for a grant of it to him for life. The result was the issue of letters patent, dated 16th July, 32 Henry VIII. (1540), granting to Robert, bishop of Llandaff and lord president of the Council of the North, "totum illud nuper Monasterium sive Prioratum nostrum de Watton in Comitatu nostro Ebor. Ac etiam totum dictum scitum fundum circuitum et precinctum ac ecclesiam ejusdem nuper Monasterii sive Prioratus," together with divers manors and other properties. But "omnia et singula debita Catalla bona mobilia et immobilia dicto nuper Monasterio sive Prioratui de Watton predicto tempore dissolucionis ejusdem spectantia sive pertinentia tam ea que predictus Episcopus nuper Commendatorius et ejusdem loci Conventus adtunc possidebant quam ea que obligacione vel alia quacumque de causa ipsis vel dicto Monasterio sive Prioratui quoquomodo debebantur ornamentis jocalibus et vasis argenteis ad dicta officia psallendis cultumque divinum in ecclesia principali sive majori de Watton predicta vocata the Nunnes Churche infra idem nuper Monasterium destinatis occupatis seu positis necnon omnibus edificijs tectis plumbo et Campanis ejusdem ecclesie principalis et aliorum edificiorum infra circuitum et precinctum Monasterii ibidem nobis semper et omnino salvis et reservatis."2

It will be seen that this grant makes over the precinct and the church, probably the canons' chapel, to Holgate, but reserves to the king all the jewels and ornaments used in the principal or greater church, called the nuns' church, as well as all buildings covered with lead and the bells of the principal church and whatever others there were.

Surveys were no doubt thereupon made of what buildings were covered with lead, and considered superfluous. That which dealt with the nuns' church and the buildings attached to it is lost, but the Survey of the

1 Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII. IV. No. 362, p. 143.

2 Public Record Office. Augmentation Office Book 235, ft. 13, 14.

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