building of the splendid late-thirteenth-century stone barn³³ still standing within the precincts—a fitting memorial to members of an Order renowned for agricultural enterprise. A long-overdue study of this important building to determine its original uses might throw interesting light on the economy of the Abbey at that period.
   In Cistercian houses the lay brothers ceased to form a significant part of the community after the fourteenth century, and their living quarters, and the western part of the nave where they formerly worshipped, were given over to other uses. At Boxley, we may assume that this part of the church was thereafter opened to the laity who came to pay devotion to the Rood of Grace which most likely stood over the rood screen, about half-way down the nave according to our deductions.
   After the Dissolution, the pattern of demolition and reconstruction followed that commonly observable in religious houses elsewhere. The west range was converted into a secular dwelling while the church and east range were wholly or partly demolished.
   In conclusion, something may be observed regarding possible future research on the site, whenever opportunity occurs. The site of the infirmary, and possibly the abbot’s house, should lie in the unexplored area east of the dormitory range. Area excavation within the transepts might uncover sufficient of the tile mosaic floors to make reconstruction of 

the design possible. Fragments of a late-medieval tomb, discovered by Payne and now lying in the modern chapel in the south-west corner of the nave, deserve examination to enable a reconstruction to be drawn. Remains of the gateway through which one still passes on approaching the house show Tudor brickwork in the arch, but an analysis of the adjoining rubble walls, together with some excavation, might well reveal the form of the medieval gatehouse.

APPENDIX I

THE GRAVE COVERSTONE (Fig. 8)

By L. R. A. GROVE, B.A., F.S.A., F.M.A.

   Writing about the cemetery of Boxley Abbey, Cave-Browne said:³⁴ ‘of all this nothing remains save one single flat tombstone in the green sward, without mark or name, beyond a foliated cross, to tell its tale.’ One would like to identify this tombstone with the subject of the present note in spite of the ‘foliated cross’.
   ³³  Mr. S. E. Rigold’s opinion that the barn may be dated c. 1280 is quoted in J. Newman’s Buildings of England—N.E. and E. Kent, 1969, 149.
    ³⁴ L Cave-Browne, op. cit., 35.

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