Abbey church

“ Though the church of the Early English abbey is roofless and the central tower gone, the noble structure, with its many graceful arches, seems to attest to the spirit of religious fervour and devotion so intimately associated with the history of its grey and lichen-covered walls.
The finest part of the ruins is undoubtedly the church, which, with the exception of the roof and the north piers of the nave, still stands complete. It has a nave of six bays with aisles, a choir of four bays with aisles, the transepts with eastern aisles having two chapels. ”

“ The abbey stands half-way down the narrow valley, a solitude of wood and mountain. The church is of the period when piety proved its zeal by destroying fine building which it was unable to replace, but beneath it are many remnants of the ancient beauty, and even in the church itself, glittering with gold and undistinguished paintings, one may see in the south-east chapel a fragment of primæval rock covered with rough frescoes, which recalls strangely the memory of an age in which the monks sought heaven by 331 a ruder path than that which they tread now. ”

“ On the tops of the arches and walls large flowering shrubs are growing; on the highest is a small tree, and within the walls are oak trees more than a century old. The abbey was built seven hundred years ago; and the ruins that are now standing look as if they might stand many centuries longer. The owner of the place has made all smooth and nice around it, so that you may imagine the floor of the church to look like green velvet. It seems as if the ivy and the flowers were caressing and supporting the abbey in its beautiful old age. ”

“ The ruined abbey church, a somewhat heavy, massive-looking structure, indicative of strength and of almost baronial character, still holds part of its great central tower aloft, and is an excellent example of Norman work, both Early and Transitional. The church alone survives the many violent attacks made upon the abbey in the 16th century, and was originally cruciform, having a nave of only two bays, north and south transepts of two bays, a choir of three bays with aisles, and a magnificent central tower of two stories. ”

“ All that remains is in the early Decorated style of the end of the thirteenth century. Here, too, upon the north stood the great abbey church, three hundred and thirty-five feet long, a cruciform building consisting of nave with two aisles, central tower, transepts with aisles, chancel with circular apse and chapels, now marked out in chalk upon the grass. All about are the woods, meadows, fishponds and greens of the monks who are gone. ”

“ The Abbey was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and belonged to a community of Cistercian monks, an order founded in France in the year 1098. The remains of the Abbey Church are the most entire and picturesque part; but adjoining the southern side are the remains of the Abbot’s lodgings, consisting of the chapter house and dormitories above. ”

“ Only the gateway of this once magnificent abbey remains, and near it the well dedicated to St Augustine. The gateway—a large embattled structure—is in a good state of preservation, and even yet possesses some of its former dignity. When excavating on the site of the abbey church, a stone effigy of peculiar interest was found. It is 15th century work, representing a lady, of royal birth possibly, who once held the position of abbess in this monastic house. She carries a staff in her right hand and in her left she holds a book. ”

“ Past and present, ancient and modern, are brought into close proximity, suggesting to one that were it possible to infuse some of the contemplative and quiescent frame of mind of Bede and his scholars into the toilers of this progressive 20th century, less might be heard of brain fag and other attendant evils of the high pressure of modern life. Of the Abbey church, the tower and chancel alone remain and are now used as the parish church. ”

“ It is celebrated for the ruins of its Benedictine abbey. The abbey church belongs to the 13th and 14th centuries; portions of the nave walls supported by flying buttresses are standing, and the windows and vaulting of the side aisles are in fair preservation. ”

“ The ruins of this abbey church of a former Benedictine monastery stand overshadowed by the glorious Malvern hills in a beautiful valley in Gloucestershire, through which flow the Avon and Severn with two tributaries. The rich colouring of the country side and the ever varying tints of the surrounding hills make the environment of Tewkesbury{131} one of singular beauty—a perfect setting for the abbey with its imposing Norman tower, one of the most perfect of the kind in England. ”

“ Of the three churches (two Evangelical and one Roman Catholic) the most remarkable is the abbey church (Klosterkirche) , a late Gothic building dating from 1465–1496, the choir of which contains beautiful 15th century carved choir-stalls and a fine high altar with a triptych (1496) . The choir only is used for service (Protestant) , the nave being used as a gymnasium. The town church (Stadtkirche) also has a fine altar with triptych. The Benedictine abbey, founded in 1095, was used after the Reformation as a school, and is now an Evangelical theological seminary. ”

“ The abbey church, when complete, was cruciform, and comprised a seven-bayed nave, with side aisles, a transept, a choir with a lady chapel, and three towers, two western ones terminating the aisles and flanking the gable of the nave, and the great central tower rising from the crossing. The monastic buildings were also on a magnificent scale, but of the church and monastic structures there only now remain the Norman nave, the base of the Lady Chapel, and part of the refectory and kitchen. ”

“ Adjoining the house is a beautiful ruin, part of the walls and windows and bases of the piers of the magnificent church administered by your predecessor the abbot. These relics are very desultory, but they are still abundant, and they testify to the great scale and the stately beauty of the abbey. You may lie upon the grass at the base of an ivied fragment, measure the girth of the great stumps of the central columns, half smothered in soft creepers, and think how strange it is that in this quiet hollow, in the midst of lonely hills, so exquisite and elaborate a work of art should have arisen. ”

“ But now upon the old foundations rose the Abbey we all know and love. In every smallest detail the new church was to be incomparable in beauty. Foreign painters and sculptors expended on it all their cunning. Peter of Rome set to work on the Confessor's Shrine, where you may still read his name, and made it glow with gold, mosaics and enamels, the like of which could not be found in England. ”

“ One never enters the Abbey Church without a thrill of admiration for the daring genius who raised those lofty vaults. That they were the first of their kind in England is almost certain, but the name of their designer does not seem to have been preserved. ”

“ One of us having been born within five miles of the latter, we must of course see its prototype. We found it to be remarkably neat but queer. The streets and avenues are hard and smooth. There are no modern buildings. It is substantial, not thickly settled, rural to a fault, but bears marks of high antiquity. Here are the remains of a celebrated abbey, now used as the parish church. The outline is varied but low. ”

“ Of the former magnificent cruciform abbey church the only portion of importance now remaining is the nave, forming the present parish church, the two easternmost bays being converted into the chancel. It is a very fine soecimen of ornate Norman. Only the western supports of the ancient tower now remain. ”

“ But go to the abbey church, and there a man will stir you up to lay hold upon God, will teach you to know Christ, each man for himself and not for another. Shut up your chapel, put off your scheme for a new one, go to the abbey church, and be filled with the finest of the wheat. ”

“ Mainly on the north side of the stream, in an open glade, rise the picturesque and extensive ruins, the church with its stately tower, and the numerous remnants of domestic buildings which enable the great abbey to be almost completely reconstructed in the mind. ”

“ Men of all creeds contributed to the work, and when the Abbey, on the 27th April 1862, was re-opened for public worship, it could scarcely be recognised, so changed was it from its former condition." [410] In closing his splendid volume Dr. Lees adds, "We trust the time is not far distant when the Abbey of the first Stewart will stand forth again in all its pristine beauty—with transept, and choir, and tower, as in the days of the founder." That hope will soon pass into a reality, and Scotland will have a completely restored abbey church used as a parish church. ”

“ The cloister and the old abbey church containing the tombs of the four Plantagenets have great archaeological value. The ruins of St. Maur perpetuate the memory of the great Benedictine abbey of that name. ”

“ In 1553 Lord Claud Hamilton, then a boy of ten, was made abbot, and the abbacy and monastery were erected into a temporal lordship in his favour in 1587. The abbey lands, after passing from his son the earl of Abercorn to the earl of Angus and then to Lord Dundonald, were purchased in 1764 by the 8th earl of Abercorn, who intended making the abbey his residence, but let the ground for building purposes. The abbey church originally consisted of a nave, choir without aisles, and transepts. ”

“ All the others which once stood here have disappeared, leaving nothing to remind us of their former existence save, in some few cases, the name of a street or lane. Of the glorious Abbey, probably the wealthiest nunnery that ever existed in the kingdom, nothing but the walls that once enclosed the precincts on the south-east, and the foundations of the church, long entirely hidden from sight by surface soil, now happily opened out by recent excavations, remain. ”

“ The abbey possesses side aisles to the nave, transepts, and choir. This is a very rare formation. Leaving the nave, filled with memorials of the illustrious dead, and passing up the south choir aisle, the south transept comes in view. The magnificent rose window is one of the largest, if not the largest, in England. On the south wall are some worn stone steps. These, no doubt, led to the domestic apartments of the monks, which were situated on the south side of the church. ”

“ Here lived the ploughmen and artisans, the millers, and smiths, and carpenters, of the monastery. For them were these chapels built, lest either the weather or the roads might prevent them going to the Abbey Church. [19] Here they all worshipped as one family, the serf no longer a serf, but a freedman, when he entered the service of the abbey.
Farther away to the westward lies Sowley Pond, called in the Abbey Charters Colgrimesmore, and Frieswater, covering some ninety acres, formerly the boundary of the abbey estate, and used by the monks as a preserve for their fish. ”

“ While the origin of the Abbey is lost in the gloom of hoariest antiquity, while its name of Avalon has become a name of legend, a name rather of some fancied fairy-land than of an actual spot of earth, no traditions, no legends, have decorated the birth and early years of the church and city which drew its name, as intelligible to English ears now as it was then, from the holy wells of Saint Andrew. ”

“ The history of York Abbey is heartbreaking to lovers of art—for from every standpoint St Mary’s church stood as a perfect type of English work. How few people realise that within a few hundred yards of the world-famed minster are the remains of what was architecturally a far more glorious structure, and which, though not so great in length, possessed more beauty of workmanship than the venerable minster. English Gothic was at the height of its perfection{40} when, in 1270, Abbot Simon of Warwick rebuilt the Abbey. ”

“ The great church which remains to us is said to have been used by the monks, and if not part of the abbey itself which would seem to have stood at some distance from it, more than one thing that remains in it would seem to endorse such a theory. ”

“ Besides the church there is a Romanesque house serving as presbytery. The decadence of the abbey dates from the early years of the 13th century when the pilgrimage to the tomb of the saint became less popular ”

“ That is where service is held every morning and every afternoon, and where all the Westminster School boys sit on Sundays when they come to church, for as Westminster school has no chapel of its own, the boys have all their services in the Abbey. Through the choir gates you can see the communion table in front of you, and behind that, again, are all the chapels where the kings and queens are buried. The nave and transepts are full of the monuments and graves of great men. ”

“ The abbey church stands immediately to the south of the mansion, separated from it only by lawns and a drive, and is used as a chapel by the present owner of the estate, a nephew of the late Baron Hambro, who restored it at great cost under the professional advice of that arch-restorer, Sir Gilbert Scott. The solitude, the size and beauty of the interior, are very impressive. Here is a place of worship like a cathedral, used for the prayers of a private household, and if you can by any means manage to forget the grotesque p. ”

“ The abbey began with a nunnery founded by King Osric in 676 and rose through a monastery founded later by King Offa to be an abbey in 1040, attached to the{53} bishopric of Wells; but it waited its final grandeur and glory from Bishop Oliver King, who while visiting Bath in 1499 saw in a dream angels ascending and descending by a ladder set between the throne of God and an olive-tree, wearing a crown, and heard a voice saying, “Let an Olive establish the crown, and a King restore the church.” ”