Besides the peal of eight the sacring bell which once hung near the high altar is now hung in the tower.
It may be well to finish the description of the church with a few notes about the material used and the method of building, abbreviated from a paper by Mr. James Neale. He says that during the restoration many examples were found of lead dowels in the joints of detached shafts. Sinkings were cut in the upper surface of the lower stone and in the lower surface of the upper, so that when in place these sinkings would be opposite to each other; a small hole one-eighth inch in diameter was then bored in the upper stone, through which lead was poured into the sinkings. The mortar used between the outer stones of the fourteenth-century bays of the nave was mixed with oyster-shells, contained a large amount of lime, and was very hard. There is much clunch stone used in the interior and this is in a good state of preservation, but any that has been used externally has decayed. The abaci of the Early English capitals in the main arcade are of Barnack stone, which is harder than clunch and so more suitable for bearing a weight. The Norman stonework was cut with an axe, the Transition with a chisel. The Early English is bolster-tooled; the Decorated ashlar (including the bays on the south side of the nave) is claw-tooled, the mouldings being scraped; the Perpendicular is finely scraped.
Although, as stated in Chapter I., Albanus suffered martyrdom in 303 A.D., and a small church was soon afterwards built over his grave, and another of larger size subsequently erected, it was not until the eighth century that the monastery was founded.
The foundation was an act of atonement on the part of Offa II., King of the Mercians, in the year 793. In the previous year he had been at the court of Ethelbert, King of East Anglia, and was a suitor for the hand of his daughter. But he treacherously murdered his host and took possession of his kingdom. Either as a politic effort to remove the evil reputation of such deeds, or as a conscientious offering to regain the favour of Heaven by means of a great work for the Church, Offa resolved to found a monastery, in honour of the protomartyr of Britain, upon the site of the martyrdom. The first thing to do was to discover the actual remains of St. Alban. The story of the discovery would not be complete without a vision and a miracle. Accordingly a vision is said to have appeared to the King at Bath, and a miraculous light to have guided him to the spot where the coffin was found. This had been purposely removed from its first resting-place within the walls of the church, for fear of its being desecrated by the Saxons, who certainly did reduce the building almost to a ruin. The coffin was found to contain the body of the martyr, as well as the precious relics which had been placed within it by the Bishop of Auxerre. Their presence establishes the identity of the remains. The church was then repaired so as to be able to preserve safely the reliquary which contained the precious relics "until a more worthy edifice should be built." Permission to build and endow the monastery was obtained from Pope Adrian I., the King making a special journey to Rome in order to procure it. The martyr was canonized at the same time. At some later time a valuable concession was granted to the new monastery: the tribute known as Peter's Pence being assigned to it, while the lands belonging to the Abbey were exempted from the payment. This grant applied to the whole of Offa's kingdom. The payment of Peter's Pence had only been instituted sixty-six years previously, the object being to maintain a Saxon college at Rome. Offa lived to see the monastery established and partially endowed. He himself gave one of the royal manors to the endowment, but he did not live long enough even to make a beginning of the grand church he appears to have had in contemplation, for he died not long after his return from Rome, some authorities giving the year 794 as the date of his death, others 796.
