that Bishop Brantyngham tried the charge and acquitted the abbot when Canon Simon Hastings was produced with as much head as he had ever had, Simon Hastings' ghost has never accepted this judgment, but, clad in the white robe of his order, is still heard, and sometimes seen, galloping a spectre horse through the avenues of the abbey on stormy November nights.1

In 1537, on the suppression of the smaller monasteries, Tor Abbey surrendered to Henry VIII. Its property was then granted to John St. Leger, and during the ensuing century and a quarter passed through the hands of Pollards, Seymours, Parkhursts, and Ridgeways,3 until at the time of the civil war it was vested in John Stowell of Parke in Bovey Tracy. From Stowell Tor Abbey was purchased on December 29, 1662,* by Sir George Cary (1611-1678) of the Cockington family, and has ever since been held by his descendants. Long used as a private residence, and much dilapidated in the process, not much more than its name remains to testify for the conventual establishment, but that little is

1 Worth, A History of Devonshire, 1886. See also Hilderic Friend, Bygone Devonshire, 1898.

2 See Cardinal Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, and the map and lists of the suppressed monasteries in Gairdner, The English Church in the Sixteenth Century.

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3 Sir Thomas Ridgeway (1565-1631), who was vice-treasurer in Ireland under Sir George Cary, subsequently succeeded him treasurer and eventually was created Earl of Londonderry, was born at Tor Abbey and is buried at Tor Mohun Church. 4 Cal. Tor Abbey Mun., H. & G., viii, 123.

interesting both actually and archeologically. Dr. Oliver1 has described the site as he saw it in 1846:

Even now when the spreading streets and villas of a flourishing town are daily making fresh inroads on the natural beauties of the spot, the charming scenery and situation of the abbatial demesne can hardly be surpassed. The roofless chapter house, the prostrate masses of the central church tower, the refectory2 converted into a chapel in 1779, and the stately grange, are still interesting. The ancient churchyard has made way for an orchard and garden. In front of the mansion was a large fish pond specially referred to in more than one of the original charters of donation. It was contiguous to the mill garden and was filled up after the fall of the gateway with the ruins of the church cloisters and other materials. From an attentive examination of the ground plan we may presume to infer that the choir of the abbey church was seventy-two feet long by thirty in breadth; that the transept was ninety-six feet wide, and that the entire length of the fabric, including the Lady's Chapel, measured about two hundred feet. Upon digging on the spot in May 1825 much tessellated pavement was found, with a stone coffin and human bones. Many benefactors chose. the abbey for their place of interment.

SIR EDWARD CARY (1575-1654), called at the end of his life "of Marldon," was the second 1 Monasticon Exoniensis. Leland (Itinerary, ed. Hearne, iii, 41) also visited and described Tor Abbey, in 1538.

2 Mr. Hugh R. Watkin, author of A Short Description of Torre Abbey, points out that as no refectory in a monastery ever found place other than on the reverse side of the church, the position of the present chapel, on the west side of the Abbey garth, indicates that it was originally the guest hall.