Bath Abbey, England

  

James Montagu Memorial, Bath Abbey, England[/caption]

This evening, I am posting information on Bath Abbey, Bath, England. This is correctly known as the Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul, an Anglican Parish Church.

History of the Abbey site can be summarised as follows:

  • There was an Abbey Church in Bath dating from around 757 AD which was part of a Benedictine monastery. This may have existed alongside the earlier convent founded by Abbess Bertana. The first King of all England, King Edgar was crowned on this site in 973 . The service set the precedent for the coronation of all future Kings and Queens of England.
  • A massive Norman cathedral replaced the earlier Saxon building in the 11th/12th centuries.
  • After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by order of King Henry VIII, the Abbey lay in ruins for more than 70 years. In 1616 repair work was undertaken which brought the building into use as a parish church. In the 1830s, local architect, George Manners added new pinnacles and flying buttresses to the exterior and inside, built a new organ on a screen over the crossing, more galleries over the choir and installed extra seating.
  • Famous architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott transformed the Abbey interior during the period 1864-1874 to conform with his vision of Victorian Gothic architecture. At this time the ancient wooden ceiling over the nave was replaced with impressive stone fan vaulting which remains evident today.
  • The church has two organs and a peal of ten bells. The west front includes sculptures of angels climbing to heaven on two stone ladders.

Visitors to the Abbey today are rewarded with an experience of light and space combined with a heritage stretching back about 1200 years.

 

Nave, Bath Abbey,

 

Bath Abbey

 

Bath Abbey, Bath

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