The crypt under the chapter house is one of the most interesting portions of the abbey buildings at Westminster. It is little known because it is not, I think, generally shown to visitors. I am indebted to the kindness of my friend, Bishop Ryle, the present dean, for an opportunity of making a special inspection of it. It is delightfully complete, and delightfully unrestored. The chief new thing about it seems the pavement, but the dean’s well-informed verger told me that it was within living memory that this pavement had replaced the flooring of 1291. Numerous windows give a fair amount of light to the apartment; though the enormous thickness of the walls, some thirteen feet, it was said, prevent the light being very abundant, even on a bright day. The central column, the lower part of the great pillar from which radiates the high soaring vaults of the chapter house above, alone breaks the present emptiness of the crypt. Considerable portions of the column are cut away to form a series of neatly made recesses, and there are recesses within these recesses, which suggest in themselves careful devices for secreting valuables, for it would be easy to conceal them by the simple expedient of inserting a stone here and there where the masonry had been cut away, and so suggesting to the unwary an unbroken column. I should not like to say that these curious store-places already existed in 1303; but there is no reason why they should not. Certainly they fit in admirably with the use of the crypt as a treasury.