Polesworth Abbey
Polesworth Abbey
The Abbey Church of St Editha is a Grade II* parish church on High Street, Polesworth, Warwickshire, in the Diocese of Birmingham, the surviving church of a Benedictine nunnery.
- Location
- Polesworth, Warwickshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Warwickshire
- City / town
- Polesworth
- Address
- High Street, Polesworth, Warwickshire, B78 1DU
- Postcode
- B78 1DU
- Built
- C11 origins; C12 nave and north aisle; C14 tower; restored 1869
- Architect
- G E Street (1869 restoration)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Editha
- Diocese
- Birmingham
- Parish
- Polesworth
- Grade
- II*
- Style
- Romanesque
- Materials
- Sandstone ashlar with tile roofs
- Grid reference
- SK 263 024
- Opening hours
- Polesworth Abbey is open everyday from 10am to 1pm The Refectory is open too. Access is easy, with disabled car parking just on the Abbey Driveway. Turn under the Gatehouse arch from High Street (use B78 1DU). At other times it's always possible to welcome individuals and groups. Please email us.
- Access
- Accessible toilets in church. Level access to the main areas. Ramp or level access available on request
Overview
Historic England records a church that was originally part of a Benedictine nunnery, with eleventh-century origins, a twelfth-century nave and north aisle, and a fourteenth-century tower with a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century top. The aisle was probably widened in the fourteenth century. The chancel and north porch were added, and the church drastically restored, in 1869 by G. E. Street. The fabric is sandstone ashlar with tile roofs and coped gables. The interior includes an eight-bay early eleventh-century Romanesque arcade of low narrow arches. A doorway originally to the cloister is set at the western end. The massive two-stage tower has diagonal buttresses and a large restored three-light Decorated north window with reticulated tracery.
Wikipedia and the parish site describe the abbey as a nunnery under Anglo-Saxon royal patronage; the site of the abbey is a scheduled monument (1005735). The late fourteenth-century Abbey Gatehouse is separately listed at Grade II* (1262202) and is also scheduled. Little of the cloister remains visible besides restored ruins. The parish church remains in regular use, with the refectory open to visitors.