Tewkesbury Abbey

The Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, is the second largest parish church in England.

Construction time-line:

• 23 October 1121 -- the choir consecrated
• 1150 -- tower and nave completed
• 1178 -- large fire necessitated some rebuilding
• ~1235 -- Chapel of St Nicholas built
• ~1300 -- Chapel of St. James built
• 1321-1335 -- choir and chapels rebuilt
• 1349-59 -- tower and nave vaulted
• 1400-1410 -- cloisters rebuilt
• 1438 -- Chapel of Isobel (countess of Warwick) built
• 1520 -- Guesten house completed (later became the vicarage)

After the Battle of Tewkesbury in the Wars of the Roses on May 4 1471, some of the defeated Lancastrians sought sanctuary in the abbey, but the victorious Yorkists, led by King Edward IV, forced their way into the abbey, and the resulting bloodshed caused the building to be closed for a month until it could be purified and re-consecrated. In the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1539 the people of Tewkesbury saved the abbey from destruction: Insisting it was their parish church, which they had the right to keep, they bought it for the value of its bells and lead roof (which would have been salvaged and melted down if it was destroyed): £453. The central stone tower was originally topped with a wooden spire, which collapsed in 1559 and was never rebuilt. What remains is one of the finest Norman buildings in Britain.

Related Topics:
Battle of Tewkesbury - Wars of the Roses - May 4 - Sanctuary - King Edward IV - Dissolution of the Monasteries - 1559

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