Cistercian Order in England, having been built in the 12th century; was
most amply endowed, and had several illustrious persons buried in the
chapel, to whose memory sumptuous monuments were erected; but after its
dissolution, the property was purchased by a merchant of Southampton,
and the sacred edifice _reduced for the value of the bare materials_.

The merchant's son afterwards sold the estate to the Lord Chief
Justice, Sir Thomas Fleming, with whose descendants it still
remains. Some of the outer walls are still extant, and must have
circumscribed at least 20 acres. A foot-path passes through the
grounds to Ryde, &c.

Of this once-magnificent establishment little now remains; merely
portions of the appendant offices, which were converted into barns,
&c., for farm-purposes. What was spared in the moment of ruthless
spoliation, lay long buried under heaps of rubbish and weeds--till
a few years since, when one of the occupiers, with laudable zeal,
rescued from total annihilation the few remaining fragments, which
are now open to the view of strangers.

* * * * *

The other Religious Structures

Scattered through the island were ... a Priory at St. Helen's; one
at Appuldurcombe; one at St. Cross, near Newport; and another at
Carisbrooke, vestiges of which may still be traced; together with a
great number of oratories, chantries, chapels, and religious
houses, amounting in the whole to 70 or 80, exclusive of the
regular parish-churches;--and yet scarcely any of these interesting