This little paved yard has borne its present name ever since the days of the Westminster abbots, for the buildings all round belonged to the Abbot's lodgings. Here, for instance, is the fine hall where the Abbot used to dine, and where the Westminster scholars still have their meals. We cannot see this in the picture, but immediately facing us is the entrance to the Jerusalem Chamber and Jericho parlour, the Abbot's guest-rooms. The old bedrooms above also formed part of the Abbot's house, and are now used by the Dean. The whole of this, including the Jericho parlour, the windows of which we can see below, was probably built, in the reign of King Henry VII., by Abbot Islip. The Jerusalem Chamber dates from an earlier period, the fourteenth century. * * * * * * Many and diverse are the purposes for which the Abbot's withdrawing-room has been utilised since the dissolution of the monastery. More than one coffin has rested here before the interment; the most notable was that of Sir Isaac Newton, when the Chamber was thronged with distinguished men from all parts of Europe. The least reputable was the famous occasion when the painted, bedizened body of a notorious actress, whose charms were extolled by Horace Walpole and sneered at by Alexander Pope, was brought into these monastic precincts, and afterwards buried inside the church itself. Wedding as well as funeral parties assemble in this room from time to time, and the Chamber is occasionally lent by the Dean for special meetings. Thus the revisers of the Old Testament carried out their onerous task, the work of several years, seated round this table. Long before, in the seventeenth century, a very different body of men had met here, when the Westminster Assembly, driven from Henry VII.'s Chapel by {139} the freezing cold, moved into the warmer atmosphere of the Dean's house, and held many a stormy debate in this peaceful old-world place.