Archaeologia Cantiana Vol. 88 1973 page 131

late-medieval canopied tomb, now preserved in the modern chapel. Here can be seen the angle of the western respond of the south arcade, built of chalk ashlar. The plain round-headed doorway referred to above is undoubtedly twelfth-century and formed the south-west entrance to the church. Further east, there is another round-arched opening, turned in brick, forming the entrance to a tunnel passing under the terrace covering the site of the south aisle and possessing no signs of marking a medieval entrance. Just east of it is a further brick arch, almost at ground level, possibly related to the drainage of the water-garden. The main entrance to the church from the cloister would have been in this south wall near its junction with the transept, but all trace of it has disappeared with modern re-facing. After the Dissolution the whole of the south aisle was filled with rubble and soil to form a terrace, the south arcade being replaced by a stone retaining-wall. The north arcade has disappeared completely but an excavation at the west end of the nave revealed the sleeper wall on which it stood, as shown in the plan. There is no clue as to the number of piers once separating the nave from its aisles but Elliston-Erwood's estimate of eight bays seems reasonable and has been followed in our reconstruction. Probably the piers were cylindrical for in our recent digging a large block of chalk was discovered with a curved face suggesting that it formed part of such a feature.²The radius indicates that the pillars		would have been no less than 3 ft. 6 in. in diameter. On the evidence of what obtained elsewhere in Cistercian churches of the mid-twelfth century, we may safely conjecture that the arches of the arcades were pointed and that above them was a clerestory of round-headed windows, with no triforium as this was out of keeping with the austere conventions of the Order. Vaulting over the main span of the nave is unlikely, though possibly the aisles were covered in the characteristic Cistercian manner with pointed barrel vaults set across each bay, as can still be seen at Fountains Abbey. In the west wall slight indications were detected below ground level of the sides of the main doorway but robbing and reconstruction had removed all architectural details. The western piers of the crossing lie under a modern garden wall and the terrace, and could not be examined. They may have supported a low central tower of only sufficient height to receive the abutment of the pitched roofs of the nave, presbytery and transepts, for anything more pretentious would have been in violation of the Cisterian ordinances of that time.³ ²'It is interesting to observe that the thirteenth-century pillars of Boxley parish church are of chalk, as noted in the guidebook. ³The General Chapter of the Order in 1157 decreed: Turres lapidece ad campanas non fiant. Marcel Aubert, L'Architecture cistercienne en France, i, Paris, 1947, 141.
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