bot, duly founded the
Abbey. Frithwald, since he could not write, made the sign of the Cross
in delivering the deed. But Frithwald's Abbey was short-lived. Perhaps
it was then not much more than a little wooden church, with buildings
for its journeying priests; at all events, the Danes had no trouble in
sacking it two hundred years later, when they made their foray brutally
complete by murdering the Abbot and his ninety monks.

But Chertsey's Abbey was to rise again. Edgar rebuilt it, and his
building was rebuilt again by the Abbot Hugh of Winchester, early in the
twelfth century, and from that date began the great days. The Abbot and
convent were in high favour with the king, and lived as well as good
monks should. They had rights of warren and liberty of the chase, they
had the right to keep dogs, and they might take hares and foxes, the
neighbouring manor of Egham sent them fifty fat hogs a year, Chobham
sent them a hundred and thirty, Byfleet sent them 325 eels, and
Petersham contributed 1,000 eels and 1,000 lampreys.

[Illustration: _Chertsey Bridge._]

Other manors swelled the noble list. Such good living should produce a
good man, and Chertsey's great Abbot has left an abiding name. He was
John de Rutherwyk, an ardent and admirable landlord and a prelate of
enduring energy and wisdom. No squire of modern days ever did more to
improve his property. He built chapels and rebuilt churches; he laid out
roads and had pathways raised from the level of flooded meadows; he set
up mills and threw bridges over streams; he sowed oak plantations and
taught forestry; he planned barns and granges for corn, and dug stews
and ponds for fish, and he was as enthusiastic a churchman as he was
energetic as a farmer. He died in 1347, and two hundred years later,
chiefly owing to his energy and foresight, the manors which had once
been Chertsey's were paying to Henry VIII some L700 a year--perhaps
L14,000 of our money.

Of all that great Abbey there remains scarcely one stone upon another.
An arch and part of an arch, a ruined wall, and the foundations of a
barn; so much and no more can be seen as John de Rutherwyk saw it. A
number of faced and dressed stones are built in haphazard among the
bricks of neighbouring walls; and the rest of the Abbey, unseen and
unknown, drains Chertsey's foundations and paves her streets. Surely
never a great house fell so low and so far.

Chertsey's main street is wide and bright, and at its side li