Architectural Features
They were built largely of Roman brick, 2 side chapels were built for burial, the Chapel of St Gregory contained the early archbishops, including St Augustine_and the chapel of St Martin containd the remains of King Ethelbert, Queen Bertha and their chaplain Bishop Liudhard.
In 1049, Abbot Wulfric bridged the gap between the Abbey Church and the Church of St Mary with a Rotunda.
Between 1070 and 1087, all the Saxon buildings were razed to the ground and a new church built.
These massive wedge-shaped supports predate the Norman cathedral, being the remains of the crypt that lay beneath the rotunda of Abbot Wulfric's Saxon minster of c.1050 The rotunda was the last part of the Saxon church to be built, as it had been started in the early C7th and had gradually grown in size over the next four centuries as chapels and churches were added. Unfortunately the Normans demolished the Saxon church and replaced it with a mighty cathedral in the Romanesque style, which itself was torn down at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. So Abbot Wulfric's rotunda lasted probably less than 50 years.
The north wall of the Norman nave is the best preserved part of the abbey, together with some column bases of the Crypt.
The Chapel of St Pancras the 3rd of the C6 churches was built of Roman brick with Roman columns reused for the chancel arches, One wall of the west porch stands nearly to its full height.