Historic Description of Tewkesbury Abbey

Tewkesbury Abbey

Tewkesbury is supposed to have taken its name from a hermit Theocus, who lived on the spot in the middle of the seventh century. That is the first statement we meet with; and no one has ever pretended to know anything about Theocus, and no one now seems to believe in his existence. Next we hear that about 715 two noble Saxon brothers, Oddo and Doddo, founded a monastery, dedicated to the Virgin, and gave it some lands. This again is fable; Oddo or Odda really lived in the eleventh century.

But that there was a monastery here at the end of the eighth century is believed; and that Hugh, Earl of the Mercians, had the body of a King of Wessex buried here, and was himself buried in 812 in the church. Danish ravages marked the ninth century, and Tewkesbury was impoverished by them. At the time of the great Benedictine reform, about 980, it was so poor that it was made subordinate to Cranborne Abbey in Dorset, and so continued till about 1100. Then Giraldus, Norman Abbot of Cranborne, induced Robert Fitz-hamon, Lord of Gloucester and much else, a cousin of William II, to re-endow Tewkesbury; and Fitz-hamon ranked as the principal founder.

In 1102 the move was made from Cranborne to Tewkesbury, and the relations of the two houses were reversed. The Abbey was consecrated in 1123. Fitz-hamon had died 1107. Robert Fitzroy, natural son of Henry I, who created him first Earl of Gloucester and married him to a daughter of Fitz-hamon, completed the church and most of the tower.

The Lordship of Tewkesbury, with the Earldom of Gloucester, passed in 1221 through the female line to the De Clares. Gilbert I de Clare, Richard, Gilbert II, and Gilbert III were all buried in the Abbey. Through a sister of the last, the Lordship went to the Despensers. Three successive lords were also buried here; a fourth was executed at Bristol; the fifth died in 1414. De Clares and Despensers each held the Lordship for abut ninety years. Then it went (again by the female line) to the Beauchamps. Isabelle Despenser married two Richard Beauchamps; the first was buried at Tewkesbury, having died in 1421; the second was the great Earl of Warwick who lies in the Beauchamp Chapel there. After his son’s early death his daughter Anne passes the Lordship to her husband Richard Neville. He being killed at Barnet (1471) his confiscated estates were granted to his two daughters. Isabelle married the ill-fated Duke of Clarence; she and he were both buried here. This closes the list of the great patrons of the place who lie in the Abbey.

At the Suppression the yearly revenue was £1598. The nave of the church was regarded as the property of the parishioners, who had no other place of worship, and would naturally have been left to them, but they were, we hope, too proud of the great building and its monuments to be satisfied with that, and they actually paid the King £453 to be allowed to keep it all. Once could wish to know who were the prime movers in this fine act. They have earned the gratitude of every reasonable being who ever has or ever will set eyes on Tewkesbury tower.

The only parts of the church which have disappeared since the Suppression are the eastern Lady Chapel, the nave of a thirteenth-century chapel which was attached to the north transepts, and a detached bell-tower which stood near the same transept and was pulled down in 1817.

The church now consists of aisled nave of eight clear bays, with original north porch; central tower and transepts, that on the south retaining its apsidal chapel, the other altered; choir of two straight bays and another curving in to form an apse; ambulatory surrounded by chapels.

Outside, the great features are; first, the tremendous western arch, 65 feet high. What sort of windows originally enclosed is not clear; probably tiers of single lights. At some time a large traceried window was put in. In 1661 this was blown in by a storm, and the present window is dated 1686. Then the much restored Norman turrets flanking the front should be noticed, and the great central tower, probably the noblest Norman tower we have. The height of it, 132 feet, is not great, but its effect is entirely independent of that. It had a wooden steeple which was blown down in 1559.

We enter, and find a magnificent Norman nave arcade with noticeably high pillars, which are quite plain cylinders. Then there is a rather insignificant triforium, and a clerestory partly obscured inside by the vaulting which was added early in the fourteenth century. The bosses on the vaulting are mostly carved with figure subjects and are well worth study; there is a series of fifteen which represent scenes in the life of our Lord, and the Last Judgment. These are the central bosses, and the subjects run from west to east. Those at the sides mostly represent angles with very various attributes, and also the Evangelists.

The Norman choir was lower than the nave. The upper part of it was remodelled in the fourteenth century at the expense of Elizabeth, who had been the wife of a Despenser (Hugh) and had married Sir Guy de Brien. The Norman pillars were raised three feet, and, on the inner side, Decorated capitals were put on them and an elaborate vaulting built. The apse from being round was made polygonal. (The vaulting of the choir aisles, be it noted, is naturally on a lower level and springs from the old capitals.) The imposition of the new roof and the insertion of the large new windows necessitated the doing away with the triforium; a gallery round the bases of the windows takes its place.

In the choir we will particularly notice the fittings, the tombs, and the glass. The altar is the original Purbeck slab, of great size, which had been sawn in two and was used for seats in the north porch. The mutilated sedilia retain traces of their colour and gilding; they have been a very beautiful work.

The organ on the south has a most admirable case. “The details,” says Mr Freeman (in his book English Organ Cases, 1921),”are not inconsistent with a date as early as about 1580.” An older case, then, was probably used by John Harris when he built the organ for Magdalen College in 1637. Cromwell had it taken to Hampton Court; in 1660 it went back to Oxford; in 1737 it was bought for Tewkesbury. Often reconstructed, it is in constant use. Its dark wood and embossed gold pipes and delightful shape give it a very high place among English organs. The large modern organ in the north transept is a fine instrument, but hither-to lacks a case.

Tombs

The visitor must read for themselves the names of the many notables, De Clares and Despensers, who are buried in the pavement of the choir; but one must be singled out who lives in the centre – Edward, only child of Henry VI, laid here along with many others who fell at the Battle of Tewkesbury, on May 4th 1471.

In the north are three splendid sepulchral chantries. The westernmost is the Warwick Chantry of 1422, commemorating the first of the Richard Beauchamps whom Isabelle Despenser married. She died in 1439, and a mutilated inscription running round the chantry asks for prayers for her soul. She was buried in the choir.

It is a wonderful, delicate composition, in two stages, the roof of the lower stage only extending over the west half of the chantry. The vaulting of both roofs is amazingly fine. No imagery is left, but there is some heraldry, Royal, and of Clares and Despensers; and there are said to have been paintings of the Apostles, St Christopher, and a cross with adorning angels.

The second is the Founder’s Chapel, to Robert Fitz-hamon, made in 1397. Here is a very early specimen of fan-vaulting; and on the east wall are tantalizing traces of paintings which are often and vainly striven to make out. It has been said that they represent scenes in the life of St Thomas of Canterbury.

The third and easternmost is to Sir Hugh Despenser (died 1349) and Elizabeth (Montacute) who subsequently married Sir Guy de Brien and remodelled the choir. The effigies of both lie on the tomb. The canopy is an astonishing piece of work, tapering to a single tabernacle at the top, but wholly stripped of the score or more of images which once were in it. Traces of its rich colouring are still visible.

The one chantry on the south side is known as the Trinity Chapel. It commemorates Edward Lord Despenser (died 1375). Within it are paintings: the Trinity, the Coronation of the Virgin; older authorities add: portraits of Despenser and his wife, and of our Lord and the Apostles. In its general lines this chapel is very like that of the founder, but it has a very distinctive and uncommon feature, a figure of Lord Despenser on top, under a tabernacle, kneeling towards the high altar.

Stained Glass

The seven large windows of the choir are filled with their original fourteenth-century glass; they were re-leaded in the 1920’s and admirably rearranged by Messrs. Kempe under the supervision of Mr Rushford, who did so much for the Great Malvern glass. Dreadful insertions perpetuated in 1828 have been cleared away, but no new painted work has been put in; the gaps are filled with neutral tinted glass.

The scheme of the subjects is simple. The two western windows on north and south each contain four figures of knights. North (from west): Fitz-hamon, Hugh Despenser, Gilbert III de Clare, Robert Fitzroy. South: Gilbert I de Clare, William Lord de la Zouch, Richard de Clare, Gilbert II de Clare. The same cartoons have been used twice over, sometimes reversed. There is a similar repetition of design in the other windows.

The next four windows, two on north and two on the south, have a series of kings and prophets, some provided with names, others not readily identifiable. The kings are David, Soloman, Rehoboam, and Abijah.

The east window has the Last Judgment; below are panels of small figures of the blessed and the lost. In the main lights are two groups of Apostles, including John Baptist, the Virgin, Christ as Judge, and an Archangel. In the tracery is a beautiful little Coronation of the Virgin.

We will now examine the transepts and the ambulatory, with the chapels and monuments, beginning on the north. The transept itself is nearly filled up by the Grove organ, given in 1887.

Just east of it is the chapel of St James (and St Nicholas), which is a thirteenth century enlargement of the old apsidal chapel opening out of the transept.

Out of it you pass northward into a thirteenth century chapel which is the choir of an Early English (Lady?) Chapel, of which, the nave is gone. It has some beautiful detail and arcading. These two chapels were long cut off from the church and used as a grammar school. They were regained in 1875.

Coming back into the ambulatory and choir aisle, we begin upon a series of radiating chapels, polygonal in shape, and somewhat resembling in arrangement those which encircle the east end of Westminster Abbey. They are all of fourteenth century. The first is that of St Margaret. Between it and the aisle is the monument of Sir Guy de Brien (1390), second husband of Elizabeth Montacute. It is of the same character as the eastern chantry on this side, but less good.

Sir Edmund’s Chapel comes next. The bosses of the vaulting show the martyrdom of the patron, who was shot with arrows by the Danes, and beheaded (in 870); his head was guarded by a wolf.

The cenotaph of John Wakeman, last abbot here and first bishop of the new see of Gloucester, partly screens off this chapel from the aisle. It has on it a cadaver – a corpse eaten by toads, serpents, and so on – a repulsive but popular form at the end of the medieval period.

On the other side of the ambulatory is the vault which contains the remains of Isabelle Neville and George, Duke of Clarence. She died in 1476, he was murdered in 1477.

Eastward is the blocked entrance to the destroyed Lady Chapel, said to have been 100 feet long.

Next, on the south, St Faith’s Chapel, as is thought, and next to it one of unknown dedication in which are to be seen a number of very interesting bits of images and carving which have been found from time to time. Some belong to the chantries, and there are some inscribed bases with names of the great benefactors and nobles which belonged to a series.

In and about the ambulatory are several remnants of good stone screens, and some tombs of abbots.

Next to the anonymous chapel is the vestry, polygonal, like its neighbour.

Pass into the south transept, which retains its apsidal chapel; there is a vaulted chamber over this, of the same size; its use is uncertain.

A door at the eastern end of the south nave aisle leads to the relic of the cloisters. They were of rich fifteenth century work. Immediately adjacent to the transept is the passage called the slype, and next to it was the chapter house, wholly gone. The monks’ cemetery was to the east of this.

The greater part of the south side and east end of the church, and, consequently, the site of the cloister buildings, is inaccessible to the public; but only foundations could be discovered by excavation; there is nothing above ground.

The cloister did not abut on the whole length of the nave, but only for five bays; west of it was the outer parlour, and from this was a door into the church.

The only other important remnant of the Abbey is the gatehouse, which, as in other instances is much restored. It belongs now to the church and has a room over it.

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