The <g>Sacristy</g> communicates by a door with the south transept of the church. It is a dark and rather low vaulted room, where the consecrated vessels and the articles of church furniture were deposited. The sacristan, whose office is partly represented in the Protestant Church by that of the humble sexton, was one of the most important personages in the monastery after [Illustration] the abbot. He was the keeper of the books, vestments, and sacred utensils belonging to the church; it was his duty to attend to the altars in the church, and to collect and account for the offerings: he was intrusted also with legacies and gifts for building, repairing, or furnishing the church. The treasure was also frequently placed in his keeping; and we read of unfaithful sacristans, who fled from their abbeys, carrying with them the money which had been intrusted to their charge. The sacristy is lighted by two windows, under one larger arch, on the east side. In the walls are several niches and recesses, which appear to have been intended to receive some of the articles intrusted to the sacristan’s care. It was perhaps the traditionary remembrance of the treasures which were deposited in the sacristy, which led a countryman in the neighbourhood to dream that there was money concealed in the wall, beneath the most ornamental of these niches; who, to seek for this imaginary object, came with a pickaxe, and broke away the bottom of the niche in the manner in which it now appears. Treasure legends are generally connected with ancient ruins, and this is not the only story of the kind which has been located in the Abbey of Netley. On the internal face of the south wall of the great quadrangle, near its eastern extremity, is seen an irregular excavation. It is said that, many years ago, a countryman dreamt of treasure buried in this wall; the same dream was presented to his imagination three different times, and he then proceeded with proper implements to the spot. After having cleared away the wall with assiduous labour, his exertions were rewarded, as tradition informs us, by the discovery of a ponderous chest filled with riches, which he bore away in triumph. But the indiscreet boastings of the finder soon reached the ears of the lord of the manor, who seized upon the treasure for his own use.