Bath Abbey
Bath Abbey
Bath Abbey, the Church of St Peter and St Paul, is a Grade I Perpendicular great church in the centre of Bath, a former Benedictine cathedral priory and a member of the Greater Churches Network.
- Location
- Bath, Somerset
- Country
- England
- County
- Somerset
- City / town
- Bath
- Address
- Kingston Buildings, Bath, Somerset, BA1 1LT
- Postcode
- BA1 1LT
- Built
- c.1499–early 16th century; nave vault 1860s
- Consecrated
- 1590s (reconsecration after the Dissolution)
- Architect
- Robert and William Vertue; George Gilbert Scott; Thomas Graham Jackson
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Peter and Paul
- Diocese
- Bath and Wells
- Parish
- Bath Abbey (St Peter and St Paul)
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Perpendicular
- Materials
- Limestone, fan vaulting
- Grid reference
- ST 751 647
- Opening hours
- Open Monday to Saturday 9.30am to 5.30pm.
- Access
- Accessible toilets nearby. Level access to the main areas
- Website
- https://www.bathabbey.org/
Overview
A Norman cathedral on this site had fallen into ruin by the late fifteenth century. Bishop Oliver King promoted a new church from 1499, employing the royal masons Robert and William Vertue, who promised fan vaults unmatched in England or France. The west front is famous for stone ladders of angels, linked to King’s vision of Jacob’s Ladder. Construction stretched past the Dissolution of 1539; the church was not reconsecrated until the 1590s and remained unfinished into the seventeenth century.
Sir George Gilbert Scott’s restoration of 1864–74 re-roofed the nave in stone, matching the Vertues’ choir vault, and cleared galleries. Sir Thomas Graham Jackson restored the west front in 1895–1901 and later added the war-memorial cloister. The abbey stands next to the Roman Baths in the Bath World Heritage Site, in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.