standeth was called the Elemosinary, or almonry, now corruptly
the ambry, for that the alms of the Abbey were there distributed
to the poor; and therein Islip, abbot of Westminster, erected
the first press of book-printing that ever was in England, about
the year of Christ 1471. William Caxton, citizen of London,
mercer, brought it into England, and was the first that
practised it _in the said abbey_; after which time the like was
practised in the abbeys of St. Augustine at Canterbury, St.
Albans, and other monasteries."

Again, in the curious hand-bill preserved in the Bodleian Library, it
will be remembered that Caxton invites his customers to "come to
Westmonester _into the Almonestrye_," where they may purchase his books
"good chepe."

From these extracts it is pretty clear that Caxton's printing-office was
in the Almonry, which was within the precincts of the Abbey, and not in
the Abbey itself. The "old chapel of St. Anne" was doubtless the place
where the first printing-office was erected in England. Abbot Milling
(not Islip, as stated by Stow) was the generous friend and patron of
Caxton and the art of printing; and it was by permission of this learned
monk that our printer was allowed the use of the building in question.

The _old_ chapel of St. Anne stood in the New-way, near the back of the
workhouse, at the bottom of the almonry leading to what is now called
Stratton Ground. It was pulled down, I believe, about the middle of the
seventeenth century. The _new_ chapel of St. Anne, erected in 1631, near
the site of the old one, was destroyed about fifty years since.

Mr. Cunningham, in his _Handbook for London_ (vol. i. p. 17.), says,--