Glorious Tewkesbury Abbey

Here I take a look around one of England's finest Norman Abbeys' with a massive crossing tower & "probably the largest & finest Romanesque tower's in England". The Abbey was founded in 1087 by the nobleman Robert FitzHamon. The building of the present abbey was began in 1102 and consecrated in 1121.The Abbey dominates the little picturesque town of Tewksbury in Gloucestershire and is the second largest parish church in the country and a former Benedictine monastery. Between 1321 & 1335, the tower and nave vaults were rebuilt in the Decorated Style. In 1539 the inhabitants of Tewksbury saved the abbey from destruction as a result of the Dissolution of the monasteries. Insisting that it was their parish church, which they had a right to keep, they bought it from King Henry VIII for £453, the value of the bells and lead roof which would have been salvaged and melted down, leaving the structure a roofless ruin.