rather than design, the Norman pillars having given way early in the church’s history. It has recently been suggested that the Abbey stands on the site of the old Roman amphitheatre, and that St Peter’s Street, St Albans, marks the position of the Roman _cursus_, or race-course. [Illustration: St Albans’ Abbey] Of the Decorated style, in vogue during the reigns of the three Edwards, in other words, throughout the fourteenth century, in addition to the beautiful work in St Albans’ Abbey, we have examples in Abbot’s Langley, Clothall, and Hitchin churches. Abbot’s Langley has also some fine Norman work in the nave. Many of the churches of the Perpendicular period, like St Mary’s, Hitchin, have large and beautiful porches. Most of the windows in Abbot’s Langley church are Perpendicular, although some on the south side are Decorated; and Tring and Offley churches are wholly of the Perpendicular style. Previous to the Reformation, Hertfordshire, like other counties, possessed numerous religious houses, such as priories, monasteries, nunneries, and hospitals; all of which, commencing with the smaller ones, were suppressed by Henry VIII, whose chief agent in the work was Thomas Cromwell. In many instances the sole evidence of the existence of such establishments is the survival of the word “Abbey” or “Priory” as the name of a private mansion, but sometimes their gateways, towers, or merely ruins, still remain. [Illustration: Ruins of Sopwell Nunnery, St Albans] The neighbourhood of St Albans is especially rich in relics of this nature. To the south, on the banks of the Ver, are the famous ruined walls of Sopwell Nunnery, a building known to have been in existence so early as 1119; but of the monastery there remains only the fine gate-house (long misused as a gaol), together with traces of the cloister arches on the south wall of the abbey. From documentary evidence, however, aided by excavations in the abbey orchard, it has been found possible to make a ground-plan of the whole establishment. The last traces of the hospital of St Mary-de-Pré vanished only during the last century; the name surviving in a private house by the Ver, which is known as the Pré. [Illustration: The Priory, Hitchin] Hitchin formerly possessed a large priory, as is indicated by the designation of the home of the Delmé-Radcliffes; as well as by the existence in the town itself of certain almshouses known as the “Biggin.” The latter were purchased by a private gentleman in 1545, being at that time part of the disestablished “Priory of Bygyng in the town of Hychen.” The Biggin, which was once inhabited by Gilbertine nuns, has a beautiful wooden corridor. “The Priory” as the title of a house in the main street of Redbourn, and “The Cell” as that of a mansion further down the road, at Markyate, are but two among many other traces of monastic institutions in the county. [Illustration: Courtyard in the Biggin Almshouses, Hitchin]