establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
merely a priory.

The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen,
is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts
to go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble
dwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably
thatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced
with small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have
led to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by
the Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may
still be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.

The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the
destroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor,
Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building
operations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed the
church during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed
through at that time. But this was not the structure which survived,
for towards the end of Stephen's reign, or during that of Henry II.,
the unfortunate convent was devastated by the King of Norway, who
entered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste
everything, both within doors and without.' The abbey slowly recovered
from this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, still
makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolution
that the abbey buildings came into the hands of Sir Richard Cholmley,
who paid over to Henry VIII. the sum of £333 8s. 4d. The manors of