Bath Abbey

Whilst in Bath recently I took the opportunity to look around the Abbey.

The original foundation of the Abbey dates back to the 7th Century, although it was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries and restored by Gilbert Scott in the 19th century. It was originally a convent, but in 944 King Edmund I gave the church to a group of monks from France and it became the church of a Benedictine monastery until it was dissolved in 1539. Following the dissolution, the church and monastic buildings passed through a number of private owners, who seem to have stripped useful building materials etc from the premises. Queen Elizabeth I decreed that the church should be restored to become the parish church of Bath. originally the building and streets of Bath crowded in on the Abbey, but remodelling of the city in the early 19th century saw the area around the Abbey cleared.