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Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 94  1978  page 85
Excavations on the Site of Leeds Priory. Part 2 The Claustral Buildings and Other Remains  By P. J. Tester, continued.

probably it was associated with the post-monastic occupation though its use is open to speculation. The walls are of ragstone rubble, no doubt re-used from the Priory, and it is covered with a red-brick barrel vault. In constructional character it has much in common with the pigeon house. A photograph of the west side of this building appears in The Invicta Magazine, ii, no. 4, (1912), 250, where it is noted that at that time it was known locally as 'The Abbey'.

APPENDIX  I

                     ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS
Fig. 1.
(Above) Remains of capital relating to chapter house entrance, with two representations of Samson rending the lion (Judges, XIV). This was a popular subject with twelfth-century sculptors, a well known example being in the tympanum at Stretton Sugwash, Herefordshire, dated 1140-50. It is derived in style from churches in or near the department of Charente Maritime in France.'
   (Below) 'Beak-head' type termination of label of chapter house entrance. It would have been matched by another on the north (left) side of the arch. At present this 'beak-head' from Leeds is believed to be unique in Kent.

Fig. 2.
Details of the base of the south side of the chapter house entrance (Plate IA). Decoration on the bases is closely matched in the chapter house entrance at Rochester where a piece of shaft lying detached near by, and probably found in the nineteenth-century excavation, has the same spiral decoration seen in the central shaft at Leeds.

Fig. 3.
   1-5. Voussoirs from the collapsed arch of the chapter house entrance. The beaded ribbon of no. 2, associated here with embattled ornament, occurs on the west doorway of Rochester Cathedral. The furrowed decoration of no. 5 is unusual.
   6. Abacus with trefoils, scrolls and binding ties as in the mid-twelfth-century lavatory tower at Canterbury Cathedral. This was also found in the debris of the chapter house entrance.
   7. Part of a twelfth-century capital found re-used in the fourteenth-century south aisle of the nave.
   L. Stone, Sculpture in Britain (1972), Plate 47 and pp. 67, 69-70.

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