Tewkesbury Abbey
Tewkesbury Abbey
Tewkesbury Abbey, the Abbey Church of St Mary, is a Grade I former Benedictine church founded by Robert Fitzhamon in 1087 and consecrated in 1121, now the parish church of Tewkesbury in the Diocese of Gloucester.
- Location
- Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire
- Country
- England
- County
- Gloucestershire
- City / town
- Tewkesbury
- Address
- Church Street, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, GL20 5RZ
- Postcode
- GL20 5RZ
- Built
- Founded 1087; consecrated 1121; choir remodelled 14th century
- Consecrated
- 1121
- Architect
- George Gilbert Scott (restoration 1875–79)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- Gloucester
- Parish
- Tewkesbury Abbey
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Romanesque and Decorated
- Materials
- Limestone ashlar, coursed lias, lead and tile roofs
- Opening hours
- The Abbey is open for general visiting Sunday 12.30pm to 6pm and Monday to Saturday 9.30am to 6pm.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets in church
Overview
The great Romanesque nave and crossing tower (second quarter of the twelfth century) survive a fire of 1178. The east arm was rebuilt in the early fourteenth century with an ambulatory, radial chapels and a lierne vault; fourteenth-century glass fills the presbytery clerestory. Chantry cages include those of Fitzhamon, Edward Despenser and the Beauchamps. After the Dissolution in 1540 the townsfolk bought the church. Sir George Gilbert Scott restored it in 1875–79; the controversy helped prompt William Morris to found the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. The west front has a vast Norman arch of six remaining orders around a 1686 Perpendicular window.