LOST CLOISTERS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 19

LOST CLOISTERS

FOUND AFTER • FOUR CENTURIES.

A wonderful relic of old London ha* been found in the heart of the city, writes a "Daily Chronicle" representative. Part of the cloisters formerly attached to St. Ba,rtholomew-the-Great, the famous Smithfield church, have been discovered, and are now being cleared of rubbish." Completely hidden away under buildings used for stabling horses, the cloisters were forgotten for centuries. Three times during the war Zeppelin bombs fell within a few yards of them, but they remained undamaged and their existence unsuspected. The discovery ie the reward of patient and long-continued efforts to bring to light all that remains of the ancient buildings connected with the priory. The arches evidently bricked up when the priory was despoiled by Henry VIII., and have remained invisible during the 4JO years which have since elapsed. The stone-work is excellently preserved, some of the courses looking as fresh as when the masons leftrthem.

In the flooring, hidden, and forgotten for centuries, is part of the original tiling of the cloisters, and the stone coffin of an unknown monk or priest, possibly one !of the priors of the foundation, has been unearthed immediately beneath the surface. Of the five bays, only three have yet been uncovered.* They are Early English in style. The full expanse of the cloister has been cleared, and the foundations of the opposite wall traced. The passage leads on -from that part of the Ba6t Cloister which was acquired by the church and restored in 1905. Until after Christmas the five bays, entirely bricked up and with 7ft of earth above the ancient flooring, were occupied by horses.