In 1700 the entire church was sold by Sir Berkeley Lucy on condition that the buildings be wholly removed, to a certain Walter Taylor, a builder of Southampton. Taylor was a Nonconformist and friend of the father of the eminent Dr Watts, by whom he had been advised to have nothing whatever to do with the impending sacrilege. Still persisting, however, in his communications with Sir Berkeley, he became tormented in dreams, in which it was revealed to him that his death would follow should he take any part in the ruin of the abbey. The unhappy man, however, signed the agreement with Lucy. He removed the roof, destroying the vaulting of the choir, nave, and north transept, together with the centre tower, selling them as so much building stone. While at work on the west end the tracery of the great window fell upon him suddenly, inflicting dreadful injuries to which he soon succumbed. In 1861 steps were taken to preserve what was left of the abbey by the next owner, Mr Chamberlay. The treatment which was given it was quite judicious, and it has not been furbished up into smug neatness like Kirkstall or Tintern, nor has it been abandoned to decay like Rievaulx. As the result of this careful handling, Netley is now left to rest a faultless and perfect ruin--a thing of almost indescribable beauty. The present-day value of Netley really lies in the infinite picturesqueness of its ruins. In the words of Sir Horace Walpole: “They are not the ruins of Netley but of Paradise. Oh! the purple Abbots! what a spot they had chosen to slumber in.” [Illustration: NETLEY.] BEAULIEU (_Mitred Cistercian_) 1204, Founded by King John--1539, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £326, 13s. 2d. The spiritual brothers of every monastic order had in common, it would seem, the gift of discerning for their foundations sites as perfect in natural charms and resources as in their adaptability for lives of study and meditation, and in their security against encroachments from without. Beaulieu and Netley had each in a measure these advantages. At the time of the Dissolution remoteness and inaccessibility proved the salvation of Netley Abbey. The vast mother-abbey of Beaulieu however lay along tide-water, and its stones were materially available for the king’s purposes. Very little remains therefore of this seat of a mitred abbot except a few of the domestic buildings, including the refectory, now used as the parish church of Beaulieu (Early English), some remnants of the cloisters, and also the fratry and kitchen. On the east side of the cloister area three arches of the chapter-house still stand. The ruins of the abbey may be reached through a stone gateway adjoining the abbot’s house--now a modern mansion, in the Decorated hall of which is a particularly fine vaulted roof. Surrounding the house is a moat constructed by an Earl of Montague as a defence against the attacks of French privateers.