Welsh Journals

excavated as far as the drain, and aerial photographs indicate it continued on the other side in a straight line to the River Severn. On the west side, Williams located a wall running obliquely from the west end of the church, and there is also a line visible on aerial photographs crossing the field about 30 metres to the west of the church and which is parallel with the eastern wall of the cloister (Figure 13). Either of these may be the precinct wall on the west side. Aerial photographs reveal three areas of ridge and furrow fields in the vicinity of the abbey, the westernmost delineated by a strong field bank, those to the north of the abbey stopping above a terrace, possibly an old course of the River Severn, and a third area overlying the western end of the church and which terminates against the western field boundary of the farm. A track approaches the abbey from the northwest. Amongst the earthworks in the area of the abbey itself, it is possible to identify some of the trenches and the edge of the area of the abbey interior which Williams excavated. Stephen Williams located two walls running south from the middle of the nave which may be the west claustral range and/or the west side of the farm buildings. The problem this presents is that it might be expected that the west side of the cloister was parallel with the west end of the church. Williams himself provided a solution to this problem, which also explains the unusual length of the church plan he recovered. He noted that the spacing of the four westernmost buttresses on the north side of the nave was wider than that of the six to the east, suggesting that the nave had at some stage been extended westwards. This makes interpretation of the scant remains at the eastern end of the church much easier as it may account for the apparent duplication of some features, but it is Fig. 14. Strata Marcella Results of geophysical survey (1990). (Geophysical Surveys of Bradford).