The recycling of structural materials has a long tradition, and many notable examples from the past stand today. A prime example is St. Albans Abbey. When the first Norman Abbott, Richard de Caen, demolished the 8th century Saxon Abbey in 1077 and commenced the building of a new one, it was to the ruins of the Roman city of Verulamium that he turned for some of the building materials. The red-brick tower is among the surviving Norman work which used the Roman materials.
R.S. Speare