Instead I would that I might see England before the fall, England of the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth century, England of my heart, with all her great cathedrals still alive, with all her great monasteries still in being, those more than six hundred houses destroyed by Henry, and not least this house of the Cistercians in Beaulieu.

"My good friend Lord H., who is a Cistercian like ourselves, and has just been appointed a governor, gave me his first nomination.

The abandoned son of Alixe Riczi was reared by the Cistercians at Chertsey, where some years ago I found you.

At St. Leonards, nearer the mouth of the estuary, is the ruin of a chapel belonging to the Cistercians of Beaulieu and also portions of their great barn, said to be the largest in England (209 feet by 70 feet).