This volume provides an account of the historical and architectural development of this great monastery, and a report on the recent excavations there. The latter saw the complete excavation of the chapter house and reredorter, and established a sequence of development from the hillside of the battle of Hastings, through the Norman abbey and its additions, to the great thirteenth-century rebuilding, continued late medieval activity and the post-dissolution periods of decay and revival. The excavations produced a wide range of finds. These included important sequences of pottery and roof tile; material that throws light on the design, glazing and flooring fo the monastic buildings; and an extensive collection of objects of bone, lead, copper alloy, iron and glass. Many of these finds came from a rich Dissolution rubbish dump.