It possesses a pigeonry much like that at Brantôme, but on a smaller scale, that wiseacres have pronounced to be a Columbarium, not for doves, but for the reception of jars containing the ashes of the dead, and have attributed this dovecote to Roman times. Mr. William Stetton, a local antiquary, writing in 1806, stated that the excavation "appeared to have been made in the earliest ages of Christianity, when the converts resorted for secrecy and security to grottoes or caves, and similar places of retirement and seclusion. The style is evidently Roman. The whole interior appears to have been invested with a thin plastering, or perhaps, only a wash, which has been painted in various colours in mosaic devices. The altar still remains pretty perfect notwithstanding the ravages of time and wanton depredation. A Roman column still adorns the north side of it, but its corresponding one on the south side has long been destroyed." An architect, John Carter, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1860, stated that the "arrangements of the excavations are monastical; and we, with much satisfaction, trace out the infirmary, refectory, dormitory, chapter-house, and the chapel. The latter place gives two aisles, divided by perforated arches, with headways in the manner of groins, and at the east end an altar." There can be no question now that although the original excavations were possibly enough Roman-British, the Papists' holes, as we have them now, are truly, as Mr. Carter says, monastical. How absurd old fashioned antiquaries were may be proved by the fact that the chimney that warmed the monks, and up which went the smoke from their kitchen, was pronounced to be a _bustum_, a flue employed for the cremation of the dead. As to the "Roman" column, that also is mediaeval.