Tewkesbury Abbey

Parish church
name = Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin


caption = Tewkesbury Abbey
dedication = St Mary the Virgin
denomination = Church of England
tradition = High Church
parish = Tewkesbury
diocese = Gloucester
province = Canterbury
vicar = Revd Canon Paul Williams
curate = Revd Steven Short
curate1 = Revd Charles Whitney
organistdom = Carleton Etherington
organist = Benjamin Nicholas
warden = Pat Cox
warden1 = Janet Davis
website = [http://www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk]

The Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Tewkesbury in the English county of Gloucestershire is the second largest parish church in the country and a former benedictine monastery.

Architecture

The church itself is one of the finest Norman buildings in England. Its massive crossing tower was rated "probably the largest and finest Romanesque tower in England" by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner. Fourteen of England's cathedrals are of smaller dimensions, while only Westminster Abbey contains more medieval church monuments.

Notable monuments

Notable church monuments surviving in Tewkesbury Abbey include:
* 1107 - when the abbey's founder Robert Fitzhamon died in 1107, he was buried in the chapter house while his son-in-law Robert FitzRoy (an illegitimate son of King Henry I), Earl of Gloucester, continued building the abbey
* 1375 - Edward Despenser, Lord of the Manor of Tewkesbury, is remembered today chiefly for the effigy on his monument, which shows him in full colour kneeling on top of the canopy of his chantry, facing toward the high altar
* ~1395 - Robert Fitzhamon's remains were moved into a new chapel built as his tomb
* 1471 - a brass plate on the floor in the center of the sanctuary marks the grave of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, the son of King Henry VI and end of the Lancastrian line, who was killed in the Battle of Tewkesbury - the only Prince of Wales ever to die in battle.
* 1477 - the bones of George, "Butt of Malmsey" Clarence, (brother of Edward IV and Richard III) and his wife Isabelle (daughter of Richard "the Kingmaker" Neville) are housed behind a glass window in a wall of their inaccessible burial vault behind the high altar
* <1539 - the cadaver monument which Abbot Wakeman had erected for himself is only a cenotaph, because he was not buried there
* Also buried in the abbey are several members of the Despenser, de Clare and Beauchamp families, all of whom were generous benefactors of the abbey

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 rebuilt with radiating chantry chapels
* 1349-59 - tower and nave vaults rebuilt; the lierne vaults of the nave replacing wooden roofing
* 1400-1410 - cloisters rebuilt
* 1438 - Chapel of Isobel (countess of Warwick) built
* 1520 - Guesten house completed (later became the vicarage)

History

The Chronicle of Tewkesbury records that the first Christian worship was brought to the area by Theoc, a missionary from Northumbria, who built his cell in the mid-7th century near on a gravel spit where the Severn and Avon rivers join together. The cell was succeeded by a monastery in 715, but nothing remaining of it has been identified.

In the 10th century the religious foundation at Tewkesbury became a priory subordinate to the benedictine Cranbourne Abbey in Dorset. In 1087, William the Conqueror gave the manor of Tewkesbury to his cousin, Robert Fitzhamon, who, with Giraldus, Abbot of Cranbourne, founded the present abbey in 1092. Building of the present Abbey church did not start until 1102, employing Caen stone imported from Normandy and floated up the Severn.

Robert Fitzhamon died at Falaise in Normandy, in 1102, but his son-in-law, Robert FitzRoy, the natural son of Henry I who was made Earl of Gloucester, continued to fund the building work. The Abbey's greatest single later patron was Lady Eleanor le Despenser, last of the De Clare heirs of FitzRoy. In the High Middle Ages, Tewkesbury became one of the richest abbeys of England.

After the Battle of Tewkesbury in the Wars of the Roses on 4 May 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.

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the people of Tewkesbury saved the abbey from destruction in 1539: Insisting it was their parish church, which they had the right to keep, they bought it from King Henry VIII for the value of its bells and lead roof which would have been salvaged and melted down, leaving the structure a roofless ruin. The price came to £453.

The bells merited their own free-standing belltower, an unusual feature in English sites. After the Dissolution, the bell-tower was used as the gaol for the borough until it was demolished in the late 18th century.

The central stone tower was originally topped with a wooden spire, which collapsed in 1559 and was never rebuilt. Some restoration undertaken in the 19th century under Sir Gilbert Scott included the rood screen that replaced the one removed when the Abbey became a parish church.

Flood waters, from the nearby River Severn, reached inside the Abbey in severe floods in 1760, and again on 23 July 2007.

The organ

The church's 17th century organ was originally made for Magdalen College, Oxford. After the English Civil War it was removed to the chapel of Hampton Court Palace and came to Tewkesbury in 1737.

Abbey precincts

The market town of Tewkesbury developed to the north of the abbey precincts, of which vestiges remain in the layout of the streets and a few buildings: the Abbot's gatehouse, the Abbey Mill, Abbey House, the present vicarage and some half-timbered dwellings in Church Street. The Abbey now sits partly isolated in lawns, like a cathedral in its close, for the area surrounding the Abbey is protected from development by the Abbey Lawn Trust, originally funded by a United States benefactor in 1962 [http://www.charities-database.co.uk/201845.html] .

Abbots

One of its most distinguished abbots was Alan, the biographer of Thomas a Kempis.

Choirs

The Abbey possesses, in effect, two choirs. The Abbey Choir sings at Sunday services, with children (boys and girls) and men in the morning, and adults in the evening. Schola Cantorum is part of Dean Close Preparatory School and sings at weekday Evensongs; it consists of boys and men (different from those in the Abbey Choir). The Abbey School Tewkesbury which educated, trained and provided choristers to sing the service of Evensong from its foundation in 1973 by Miles Amherst, closed in 2006; some of the choristers then relocated to Dean Close School, Cheltenham to form the Schola Cantorum.

Worship

For the most part, worship at the Abbey has been emphatically High Anglican. However, in more recent times there has been an acknowledgement of the value of less solemn worship, and this is reflected in the two congregational services offered on Sunday mornings. The first of these (at 9.15am) is a Parish Eucharist, with modern language and an informal atmosphere that appeals more to those with young families; a parish breakfast is typically served between these two services. The main Sung Eucharist at 11am is solemn and formal, including a choral Mass; traditional language is used throughout, and most parts of the service are indeed sung, including the Collect and Gospel reading. Choral Evensong is sung on Sunday evenings, and also on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday during the week. A said Eucharist also takes place every day of the week, at varying times, and alternating between traditional and modern language.

External links

* [http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=2690783 www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Tewkesbury Abbey]

References

*Richard K. Morris and Ron Shoesmith (editors), 2003. "Tewkesbury Abbey: History, Art and Architecture" ISBN 1-904396-03-8
* [http://www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/ Official site]
* [http://www.britannia.com/travel/tours/glstour7.html Britannia.com Detailed tour]
* [http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/mss/top/glouc/d/002.htm Illuminated armorials in the Founders' and Benefactors' Book of Tewkesbury Abbey, early 16th century, at the Bodleian Library]
* [http://www.ringing.demon.co.uk/abbey/twxbells.htm David Bagley, "The bells of Tewkesbury Abbey"]
* [http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/abbeys/tewkesbury%20abbey.htm Heritage Trail: Tewkesbury Abbey]
* [http://www.deanclose.co.uk/prep/choristers.asp Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum]
* [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=40269 The abbey of Tewkesbury] , "Victoria County History of England: Gloucestershire", Vol. 2, pp.61-6.
* [http://www.ofchoristers.net/Chapters/Tewkesbury.htm A history of the choristers of Tewkesbury Abbey]
* [http://www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/Temporary%20pages/Flooding.html Flooding at Tewkesbury Abbey, July 2007]