The steeple is a massive square tower, eighty-six feet high, embattled, and supported by strong buttresses. It was erected, as has been already stated, during the reign of Queen Mary, at the expense of the parishioners. It appears from the parish books that for the first fifty-three feet the expense of building, independent of the materials, was 33_s._ 4_d._ a foot, and that the upper part cost 40_s._ a foot, the difference arising probably from the increase in the value of labour in the reign of Elizabeth, when the tower was completed. The principal modern alterations in this church appear to have been made between the years 1668 and 1680.[225] The out-buildings attached to the church are on the <g>South Side</g>. They consist of a vestry and school-room, occupying what was formerly the Lady Chapel. This has been so much modernized, that very little of the original building can now be seen. It appears that a large portion of the money expended on reparations in the latter part of the seventeenth century was applied to the building and furnishing of the school-room. Underneath this [Illustration] building is a crypt, curiously groined, which is now used as a charnel-house. This Lady Chapel, from the style of what remains of the original architecture, and the ornamental <g>Buttresses</g> which still exist, has been supposed to be as old as the time of Henry III. Waltham Abbey can boast of fewer learned men than most of the old monastic houses. Fuller mentions Roger de Waltham, canon of St. Paul’s, a writer in the thirteenth century, and John de Waltham, keeper of the privy seal to King Richard II. The same historian places Robert Fuller, the last abbot of Waltham, among the literary men of that house, because he had written a history of his abbey, which Thomas Fuller professes to have consulted: it is probable, however, that this “history” was nothing more than the register of charters and other deeds of the abbey, still preserved in the Harleian Library, which would reduce Abbot Fuller’s claim to literary honours within very modest limits. It was from a deed of Abbot Fuller, that Farmer gave one <g>Coat of Arms</g> belonging to this abbey, which is _gules_, two angels _or_, flying with their wings extended, with their hands holding between them a cross _argent_. A different coat (which is represented in a former cut) is given by Fuller the historian, along with the arms of the other mitred abbeys. At the time of its surrender in 1539, Waltham was one of the richest abbeys in the kingdom, the gross amount of its revenues being, according to Speed, nearly eleven hundred pounds a-year: according to the Monasticon, the clear income was nine hundred pounds. [Illustration]