Historic Churches 2023

36 BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON H ISTOR I C CHURCHE S 30th ANNUAL ED ITION BATH ABBEY Discovering the lost Anglo-Saxon monastery and medieval cathedral priory Cai Mason A RCHAEOLOGICAL WORK by Wessex Archaeology, associated with the £19.3 million, National Lottery Heritage Funded, Bath Abbey Footprint Project has uncovered evidence of its complex post-medieval history, as well as revealing evidence of the abbey’s Anglo-Saxon and Norman predecessors. Bath Abbey is a masterpiece of Perpendicular Gothic architecture. It is also England’s last medieval cathedral. Built at the turn of the 16th century, the modern visitor is met by a building of unified appearance with all the traits one might expect from a great church of this period: a bright interior lit by large and closely spaced windows; soaring arcades supporting ornate fan vaults; with flying buttresses and pinnacles on the exterior. It also boasts some idiosyncratic features, such as the very large square-headed east window and a west front featuring carvings of angels ascending and descending ladders. But this unified late medieval appearance is deceptive. The abbey was incomplete at Dissolution and the project was abandoned until the early 17th century when it was finally fully roofed and glazed. A major renovation by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1864–74 removed much of this later fabric, and ‘completed’ the building in a way that he envisioned its medieval builders had intended. THE ANGLO-SAXON MONASTERY OF ST PETER Evidence from the adjacent Roman Baths shows that there has been a Christian presence in the city since the 4th century AD. It is unknown if this community persisted in the years after the withdrawal of the Roman legions in AD 410, and if so for how long. A medieval copy (of debatable veracity) of an AD 675 charter records the granting of 100 hides of land at Bath to the Abbess Bertana. Later documents, dating from AD 758 and 781, refer to monks and their ‘celebrated monastery’ of St Peter’s in Bath; and in the AD 950s, its church, possibly built for King Offa in the late 8th century, was described by King Eadwig as ‘marvelously wrought.’ During the 970s and 80s AD, the monastery was reformed along Benedictine lines by Abbot Ælfheah and Archbishop Dunstan. By this date, the abbey had become an important institution, and in AD 973 it was chosen as the site for King West front of Bath Abbey (All photos: ©Wessex Archaeology)