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until its demolition towards the end of the eighteenth century. The view
is taken from the north, and on the right can be clearly recognized the
Tudor pigeon house still remaining — though sadly now in ruins — ably
described by the late John E. L. Caiger in Arch. Cant., lxxxix
(1974), 36-41. Surrounding the house are shown gardens and plantations within
walled enclosures, the whole being a very complete bird’s-eye view of
the establishment when occupied by the Meredith family in the early
eighteenth century.
One would expect to observe some recognizable features of the
main building to coincide with the medieval layout as revealed by the
recent excavations, but after careful study I am forced to conclude that
this cannot be done with any certainty. The façade of the house faced
north and was very similar in style to Charlton Court, East Sutton, dated
1612 and illustrated in The Buildings of England —West Kent and the
Weald (1969). Behind it appears a series of buildings with pitched
dormered roofs, apparently ranged round a small court. This suggests
continuity with the claustral plan, but details of the buildings
themselves show no obvious medieval characteristics and the enclosed area
is much less than that of the monastic cloister garth. In the foreground,
projecting west from the main structure, appears a building with
buttresses on its north side, and this might possibly be a survival of the
wing shown by excavation to have been attached to the north end of the
medieval west
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range. If this identification is correct, the Jacobean front would have
stood just south of the destroyed nave.
Excavation revealed evidence of post-Dissolution alteration in
the area of the south transept, where a concentration of domestic rubbish
was uncovered, including pottery of c. 1700. The chapter house showed
clear evidence of having been used as a coal store and walls to its east
were of a constructional character quite dissimilar to the adjoining
medieval work. A rectangular compartment in this area (the smaller of the
two shown on the plan covering the site of the eastern limit of the
destroyed apse) was lined with brickwork, the inner face of the walls having
internal projections one brick thick, forming small stalls, about 10 in.
wide, each with a pottery bowl mortared into the floor. [Pictures] Their purpose is a
mystery, although it has been suggested that they were nesting places for
poultry, and the pottery, with patchy green glaze on the interior, suggests
a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century date.
In the south range, the brick oven inserted in the back of the
medieval fireplace is evidence of continued use of this part of the Priory
after the Dissolution and, as previously stated, both constructional
evidence and associated pottery leads to a similar conclusion regarding the
kitchen.
A short distance south of the Priory site there stands a detached
rectangular building shown on the O.S. Sheet at TQ 82345295. Most
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