Malmesbury

To Malmesbury, an ancient town along the M4, once  the site of an abbey.  The town stands on a hill between two rivers so it was an obvious choice as a settlement.

This is what remains of the abbey church.  In about 1500 the spire, taller than Winchester's, collapsed.  Then the dissolution of the monasteries saw the abbey buildings sold off and bought by one William Stumpe, an immensely rich clothier.  He gave the nave of the church to the parish as a parish church, meanwhile building himself a rather nice mansion using the abbot's house as its base and robbing out stone from the church itself and causing the tower to collapse.

It's still an astonishing building.

The porch, with its romanesque arches, is particularly fine.

Once there would have been a procession of pilgrims coming to pray.  This strange little cabin was apparently an early surveillance system manned by the monks.

So this is what we had come to see: a memorial plaque to the lady we have been researching this winter.  She died in 1631 and one of her daughters put up this plaque to her memory.  She was a grand daughter of Thomas Paycocke, the clothier responsible for the building of Paycocke's House where we volunteer.  The man she married - or one of them - was the second son of William Stumpe, and they lived in the Abbey House.

Malmesbury was a centre of conflict during the Civil War, but the ancient town walls are still clearly evident.

It is a really interesting place to look round and well worth a detour.