(2) The Hospital of _St. Mary de Pre_, for women-lepers, founded about fifty years after the above by Warren de Cambridge, twentieth abbot, on either side of the old Watling Street. Some of the graves in the churchyard attached to the hospital were visible so recently as 1827, and the cottages known as the "Three Chimnies," originally part of the hospital itself, were pulled down in 1849.[8] [Footnote 8: _Vide_ _Historical Records of St. Albans_, by A. E. Gibbs, F.L.S., etc.; a most interesting little volume.] (3) _Sopwell Nunnery_, founded by Abbot Geoffrey de Gorham about 1140, at a spot a little S. from the Old London Road, on the river Ver. The masses of ivy-mantled ruins still to be seen, and usually called the "ruins of Sopwell Nunnery," are, at least for the most part, the remains of the house built by Sir Richard Lee, to whom the manor was granted at the Dissolution. ST. ALBANS ABBEY.--The Abbey has been so repeatedly altered and restored that it may be said to illustrate every style of ecclesiastical architecture from Norman to the present time. Opinions differ widely as to the merits of that scheme of renovation and innovation completed under the direction and by the munificence of Lord Grimthorpe, and no attempt will be here made to criticise or extol the work of so great an expert. Such a description of the venerable Abbey as an architect might love to write would fill a volume in this series. After careful consideration I have decided to sketch its history in such a way as to show, however imperfectly, how it came to be what it is. I have been careful to compare many authorities and to follow the consensus of testimony wherever I have found discrepancy or contradiction.