The series of buildings which we have just described separates the Fountain Court from the second court of the abbey, which also appears to have been surrounded with buildings, at least on three sides. This second court forms at present a fair lawn, on which pic-nic parties visiting the ruins take their dinner or tea, and which is designated as the Abbey Garden. On three sides are the remains of a raised terrace: this, combined with some other circumstances, leads us to conclude that the so-called garden was the <g>Cloisters</g> of the abbey. The present terrace was the floor of the cloister, which we know was, in most instances, raised above the level of the enclosed court. This cloister appears to have formed an exact square, like the first court. The windows of the sacristy, chapter-house, parlour, and refectory, looked into it on the west side. The north-west corner adjoined the transept and choir of the church. On the south it was probably separated from the kitchen by a small court, or by less important offices. At the east side of this court, there are traces of a smaller court, and considerable ruins of a large building, with vaulted rooms on the ground-floor, and chambers above. This may have been the <g>Abbot’s House</g>. It appears to have communicated with the woods behind, perhaps by one of those “privie posternes” mentioned in the old satirists, by which the abbots are said to have introduced into their lodgings persons of a very equivocal character. The ground on which the Abbey of Netley is built is a gentle declivity, sloping towards the beach. Although much concealed by trees and brushwood, the ruins are seen to effect from several different points. Perhaps the most interesting general view is that from the north, where the hill rises rather abruptly from the walls of the church, affording almost a bird’s-eye view of the interior. The effect of the picture thus presented to the view has been in some degree lessened by the destruction of the ivy with which, some years ago, the walls were clothed. “This destruction was begun by the French emigrant royalists who were encamped on the neighbouring common, previously to the ill-fated expedition to Quiberon during the revolutionary war; but it was recently carried on, much more effectually, by order of the late Lady Holland, then its proprietor, who is said to have been induced to commit this desecration by the representation of a member of the Dilettanti Club, who unfortunately had read in Pausanias of the injury which a certain ancient temple in Bœotia had sustained from the ivy which encircled it loosening the cement of the stones, and separating them from each other, and who, in consequence, implored her ladyship to prevent her temple from sharing a similar fate.”[233] The beauty of the scene is here increased by the Southampton Water, which appears in the background, the distant view of the New Forest, and the still more