It is reasonably safe to assume that the fiftieth volume in the consistently excellent Museum of London Archaeology Monograph series is one of the most anticipated. Excavations at Bermondsey Abbey go back to Professor W. F. Grimes in 1956 and 1962–3 before intensifying under the various Museum of London excavation units between 1984 and 1995 and latterly by Pre-Construct Archaeology. These campaigns represent surely one of the longest and most extensive programmes of investigation on any major British monastic settlement. This report assembles fifty years of research into one of England's major Cluniac religious houses. The site of the priory of St Saviour in Bermondsey is one of the very few of the order in England that has been investigated on such a scale and using modern archaeological methods. This study focuses on the results from the fully excavated areas of the monastic eastern ranges, including the east range of the main cloister, the chapel, the second infirmary cloister, the cemetery and further ranges and areas to the east. The report also, and crucially, incorporates the results of Grimes's rescue work of the 1950s and 1960s and the more recent structural recording undertaken by Pre-Construct Archaeology in the area of the south transept and east range. Bermondsey Priory was founded in the 1080s on the south bank of the Thames on an island which was the site of an Anglo-Saxon minster. The Cluniac priory dedicated to the Holy Saviour became the centre of pilgrimage due to the discovery of a Holy Rood on the adjacent banks of the Thames in 1117 and in 1399 an abbey, before its transformation in the sixteenth century into a courtier's mansion. The report narrative explores the archaeological evidence for Bermondsey's monastic community and economy over 600 years. The early chapel and timber latrine, together with the free-standing lavabo in the main cloister and possible bathhouse are the key features of the Cluniac priory complex. The twelfth-century building programme, including the east range and cloister and a second infirmary cloister, is examined in some detail. The development of the monastic cemetery, containing 193 individuals, is given considerable attention. Certain aspects of the medieval priory are treated thematically in the report. These include the monastery's Late Saxon foundation, the twelfth- to fourteenth-century priory and its continental European counterparts, and the infirmary and its development throughout the life of the priory. A section on the people of the monastery addresses the inhabitants through their material culture, diet and burial practices, hygiene management and water supply and evidence for industrial production. Further chapters discuss the contraction of the abbey in its final years and the discarding of objects before systematic stripping at the Dissolution and the construction of a mansion around the former main cloister by Thomas Pope. Specialist chapters include detailed study of surveys by John Chessell Buckler in the nineteenth century, mainly recording the remains of the conversion to Tudor courtier mansion, and of the surviving architectural fragments, the other stone and ceramic building material, the window glass, pottery and other domestic material culture, animal bones and the remains of the community buried there. The monastic community of St Saviour in Bermondsey went through many episodes of growth and contraction over its long lifespan. Despite the change to abbey status in 1399, essentially the church at the Dissolution was still a twelfth-century church, albeit with a heavily altered east end. The archaeological evidence points to some contraction in the immediate pre-Dissolution period, with a reduction in community numbers and evidence for rubbish dumping in the reredorter. These observations remain tantalising insights only, and many of the results and interpretations articulated in this study would have benefitted from being set into a more explicit comparative framework, say alongside other monastic foundations in the City of London and outside. This missed opportunity applies, for instance, to the domestic ceramics and the equipping of large communal establishments. Equally, as the authors concede, an urgent future research priority is to assess the process of suppression across London monastic houses and whether there was a common experience. In keeping with virtually all the Museum of London Archaeology Monographs, the reader benefits from a well structured diet of archaeological and historical scene-setting, detailed site development and phasing, followed by numerous specialist appendices covering architecture, material culture, ecofactual evidence, human remains etc. The analytical narrative, mainly focusing on the monastic community itself, is buried in the middle of the report and is unenticingly labelled ‘aspects of the medieval priory and abbey’. With a minimum of editorial footwork, this section could have been developed into the main conclusive discussion and a more effective platform for much needed comparative study.