The next morning was very showery. I however proceeded to the abbey.187 This has no tower so that the distant view is of Gables and nothing else. The chapel which is usually on the south side is here placed in the North and the cloysters are at the South — an arrangement which may perhaps be occasioned by the situation of the building on the rocky and broken banks of the river. When I entered, a venerable looking old man was pacing slowly round the ruined church telling his beads. He took no notice of my entrance or of my sketching the abbey but when he had finished his number of rounds knelt down at the altar & remained immovable for near a quarter of an hour. The cloisters are large and very beautiful but the elegant little pillars of black marble which form the circuit, seem a very inadequate support to the high and continued wall above. [p. 153] Besides the abbey Askeaton boasts the ruins of a castle.188 There is not much beauty of detail but it is a fine fragment and well situated.
The country about Askeaton has not much to excite the admiration of the traveller. The banks of the river are steep and rocky but not high. The view is naked but the soil is said to be very rich as it is everywhere above the Limestone. We returned to dinner along a