Westminster Abbey. (Part Two.)

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

The Great North Door,

Westminster Abbey.

Photo: 10 November 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: Telemaque MySon.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Confessor's Shrine subsequently played a great part in his Canonisation. The work continued between 1245 and 1517 and was largely finished by the architect Henry Yevele, in the reign of King Richard II. King Henry III also commissioned a unique Cosmati Pavement in front of the High Altar (the Pavement has recently undergone a major cleaning and conservation programme and was re-dedicated by the Dean at a Service on 21 May 2010).

King Henry VII added a Perpendicular Style Chapel, dedicated to The Blessed Virgin Mary, in 1503 (known as the Henry VII Chapel). Much of the stone came from Caen, in France (Caen stone), the Isle of Portland (Portland stone) and the Loire Valley region of France (tuffeau limestone).

In 1535, the Abbey's annual income of £2,400 – £2,800 (£1,280,000 to £1,490,000 as of 2014), during the Assessment attendant on the Dissolution of the Monasteries, rendered it second in wealth only to Glastonbury Abbey.

King Henry VIII assumed direct Royal Control in 1539 and granted the Abbey the status of a Cathedral by Charter in 1540, simultaneously issuing Letters Patent, establishing the Diocese of Westminster. By granting the Abbey Cathedral Status, Henry VIII gained an excuse to spare it from the destruction or dissolution which he inflicted on most English Abbeys during this period.

Westminster Diocese was dissolved in 1550, but the Abbey was recognised (in 1552, retroactively to 1550) as a second Cathedral of the Diocese of London until 1556. The already-old expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul" may have been given a new lease of life when money meant for the Abbey, which is dedicated to Saint Peter, was diverted to the Treasury of Saint Paul's Cathedral.

English: The Great West Door,

Westminster Abbey.

Deutsch: Westportal der Westminster Abbey.

Photo: 16 September 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: Cum Deo.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey was restored to the Benedictines, under the Catholic, Mary I of England, but they were again ejected, under Elizabeth I, in 1559. In 1560, Elizabeth re-established Westminster as a "Royal Peculiar" – a Church responsible directly to the Sovereign, rather than to a Diocesan Bishop – and made it the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter (that is, a Church with an attached Chapter of Canons, headed by a Dean.) The last of Mary's Abbots was made the first Dean.

It suffered damage during the turbulent 1640s, when it was attacked by Puritan iconoclasts, but was again protected, by its close ties to the State, during the Commonwealth period. Oliver Cromwell was given an elaborate funeral there in 1658, only to be disinterred in January 1661 and posthumously hanged from a gibbet at Tyburn.

English: The Liber Regalis, showing Richard II and Anne of Bohemia.

Čeština: Liber Regalis - Richard II. a Anna Lucemburská.

Date: 14th-Century.

Source: http://www.history.ac.uk/richardII/images/liber2.jpg

Author: Unknown English painter.

(Wikimedia Commons)

On her arrival, in December 1381, Anne of Bohemia was severely criticised by contemporary chroniclers, probably as a result of the financial arrangements of the marriage, although it was quite typical for Queens to be viewed in critical terms.

The Westminster Chronicler called her "a tiny scrap of humanity", and Thomas Walsingham
related a disastrous omen upon her arrival, where her ships smashed to pieces
as soon as she had disembarked.

Nevertheless, Anne and King Richard II were married in Westminster Abbey on 22 January 1382. Tournaments were held for several days after the Ceremony, in celebration. They then went on an itinerary of the Realm, staying at many major Abbeys along the way.

In 1383, Anne of Bohemia visited the City of Norwich, where, at the Great Hospital, a ceiling comprising 252 black eagles was made in her honour.

Anne's wedding to Richard II was the fifth Royal Wedding in Westminster Abbey, and was not followed by any other Royal Wedding in Westminster Abbey for another 537 years.

They were married for twelve years, but had no children. Anne's death from plague, in 1394, at Sheen Manor, was a devastating blow to Richard, whose subsequent unwise conduct lost him his Throne.

Richard married his second wife, Isabella of Valois, on 31 October 1396.

English: Chapter House,

Westminster Abbey,

London.

Deutsch: Kapitelhaus der Westminster Abbey in London.

Photo: 12 February 2011.

Source: Own work.

Author: Aiwok.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey's two Western Towers were built between 1722 and 1745 by Nicholas Hawksmoor, constructed from Portland stone, to an early example of a Gothic Revival design. Purbeck marble was used for the walls and the floors of Westminster Abbey, even though the various tombstones are made of different types of marble. Further rebuilding and restoration occurred in the 19th-Century under Sir George Gilbert Scott.

A Narthex (a Portico or Entrance Hall) for the West Front was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the Mid-20th-Century, but was not built. Images of the Abbey, prior to the construction of the Towers, are scarce, though the Abbey's official website states that the building was without Towers, following Yevele's renovation, with just the lower segments, beneath the roof level of the Nave, completed.

Until the 19th-Century, Westminster was the Third Seat of Learning in England, after Oxford and Cambridge. It was here that the first third of the King James Bible Old Testament and the last half of the New Testament were translated. The New English Bible was also put together here in the 20th-Century. Westminster suffered minor damage, during the Blitz, on 15 November 1940.

Illustration by Herbert Railton (1857-1910).

South Aisle of the Choir,

from A Brief Account of Westminster Abbey

(1894) by W.J. Loftie.

Date: 16 November 2009.

Source: Own scan of illustration in old book.

Author: Man vyi.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In the 1990s, two Icons, by the Russian Icon painter, Sergei Fyodorov, were hung in the Abbey. On 6 September 1997, the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, was held at the Abbey. On 17 September 2010, Pope Benedict XVI became the first Pope to set foot in the Abbey.

As indicated above, since the Coronations in 1066 of both King Harold and William the Conqueror, Coronations of English and British Monarchs were held in the Abbey. King Henry III was unable to be Crowned in London, when he first came to the Throne, because the French Prince, Louis, had taken control of the City, and so the King was crowned in Gloucester Cathedral. This Coronation was deemed by the Pope to be improper, and a further Coronation was held in the Abbey on 17 May 1220. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the traditional Cleric in the Coronation ceremony.

King Edward's Chair (or Saint Edward's Chair), the Throne on which English and British Sovereigns have been Seated at the moment of Coronation, is housed within the Abbey and has been used at every Coronation since 1308. From 1301 to 1996 (except for a short time in 1950, when it was temporarily stolen by Scottish nationalists), the Chair also housed the Stone of Scone, upon which the Kings of the Scots are Crowned. Although the Stone is now kept in Scotland, in Edinburgh Castle, at future Coronations, it is intended that the Stone will be returned to Saint Edward's Chair for use during the Coronation ceremony.

PART THREE FOLLOWS

Westminster Abbey. (Part One.)

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

Westminster Abbey,

London, England.

This File: 5 May 2006.

Source: Own work.

User: Tebbetts.

(Wikipedia)

The Interior of Henry VII's Chapel,

Westminster Abbey,

London, England.

Artist: Canaletto (1697–1768).

Date: Early 1750s.

Current location: Private collection.

This File: 13 April 2009.

User: Rfdarsie.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is a large, mainly Gothic, Church in the City of Westminster, London, located just to the West of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the most notable religious buildings in the United Kingdom and has been the traditional place of Coronation and Burial Site for English and, later, British Monarchs. The Abbey is a Royal Peculiar and, between 1540 and 1556, had the status of a Cathedral; however, the Church is no longer an Abbey, nor Cathedral.

According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard, in about 1080, a Church was founded at the site (then known as Thorn Ey (Thorn Island)) in the 7th-Century, at the time of Mellitus (+ 624 A.D.), a Bishop of London. Construction of the present Church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III.

Since 1066, when Harold Godwinson and William the Conqueror were Crowned, the Coronations of English and British Monarchs have been held here. Since 1100, there have been at least sixteen Royal Weddings at the Abbey. Two were of reigning Monarchs (Henry I and Richard II), although, before 1919, there had been none for some 500 years.

English: Towers of Westminster Abbey, London, England.

Français: Les tours de l'Abbaye de Westminster, Londres, Angleterre.

Photo: 28 August 2007.

Source: Own work.

Author: Bernard Gagnon.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The first reports of the Abbey are based on a late tradition, claiming that a young fisherman, called Aldrich, on the River Thames, saw a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to be quoted to justify the gifts of salmon, from Thames fishermen, that the Abbey received in later years. In the present era, the Fishmonger's Company still gives a salmon every year. The proven origins are that in the 960s A.D., or early 970s A.D., Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, installed a Community of Benedictine Monks here.

Between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding Saint Peter's Abbey, in order to provide himself with a Royal Burial Church. It was the first Church in England built in the Norman Romanesque Style. It was not completed until around 1090, but was Consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edward's death on 5 January 1066. A week later, he was buried in the Church, and, nine years later, his wife, Edith, was buried alongside him. His successor, King Harold II, was probably Crowned in the Abbey, although the first documented Coronation is that of William the Conqueror, later the same year.

The only extant depiction of Edward's Abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry. Some of the lower parts of the Monastic Dormitory, an extension of the South Transept, survive in the Norman Undercroft of the Great School, including a door, said to come from the previous Saxon Abbey. Increased endowments supported a Community increased from a dozen Monks in Saint Dunstan's original Foundation, up to a maximum about eighty Monks, although there was also a large Community of Lay Brothers, who supported the Monastery's extensive property and activities.

Westminster Abbey,

London, England.

2 February 2012.

Source: Own work.

Author: Dirk Ingo Franke.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Construction of the present Church was begun in 1245 by King Henry III, who selected the site for his burial.

The Abbot and Monks, in proximity to the Royal Palace of Westminster, the Seat of Government from the Late-12th-Century, became a powerful force in the Centuries after the Norman Conquest. The Abbot often was employed on Royal Service and, in due course, took his place in the House of Lords as of right.

Released from the burdens of Spiritual Leadership, which passed to the reformed Cluniac Movement after the Mid-10th-Century, and occupied with the administration of great landed properties, some of which lay far from Westminster, "the Benedictines achieved a remarkable degree of identification with the Secular Life of their times, and particularly with Upper-Class Life", Barbara Harvey concludes, to the extent that her depiction of daily life provides a wider view of the concerns of the English gentry in the High- and Late-Middle Ages.

The proximity of the Palace of Westminster did not extend to providing Monks or Abbots with High Royal Connections; in social origin, the Benedictines of Westminster were as modest as most of the Order. The Abbot remained Lord of the Manor of Westminster, as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it; as a consumer and employer, on a grand scale, the Monastery helped fuel the town economy, and relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising Charter was issued during the Middle Ages. The Abbey built shops and dwellings on the West Side, encroaching upon the Sanctuary.

English: Cosmatesque pavement, central nave of the Duomo di San Cesareo

in Terracina (Latium, Italy). King Henry III commissioned a Cosmati Pavement

in front of the High Altar in Westminster Abbey.

Français: Pavement cosmatesque, nef centrale du Dôme de

San Cesareo à Terracina (Latium, Italie).

Italiano: Terracina (provincia di Latina, Lazio, Italia), città alta, Duomo di San Cesareo,

interno, pavimento cosmatesco, tratto al centro della navata centrale.

Photo: August 2006.

Source: Own work.

Author: MM.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey became the Coronation Site of Norman Kings. None were buried there until King Henry III, intensely devoted to the cult of Edward the Confessor, rebuilt the Abbey in Anglo-French Gothic Style as a Shrine to Venerate King Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own tomb, under the highest Gothic Nave in England.

PART TWO FOLLOWS

The Transfiguration Of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Feast Day 6 August.

Text and Illustrations (unless otherwise stated) are taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
which is available from ST. BONAVENTURE PRESS

Double of the Second-Class.

White Vestments.

This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased: Hear ye Him.

The Feast of The Transfiguration of Jesus had long been Solemnised on 6 August, in different Churches of the East and the West. To commemorate the victory which arrested, near Belgrade, in 1456, the invading tide of Islam, and which was announced at Rome on 6 August, Pope Callistus III extended the Feast to the whole Church.

It is the Feast of many Churches under the Title of Saint Saviour. This is why Pope Saint Pius X raised it to the Rank of Double of the Second-Class, for it is the old Title of the Cathedral of Rome, Saint John Lateran, formerly called the Basilica of Saint Saviour (Feast Day 9 November).

In Low Masses: Commemoration of The Holy Martyrs, Pope Saint Sixtus II, Felicissimus

                             and Agapitus.

Tewkesbury Abbey.

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin,

Tewkesbury Abbey,

Gloucestershire, England.

Photo: 20 July 2006.

Source: Own work.

Author: Velela.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Title: "Sanctuary — King Edward IV and Lancastrian Fugitives at Tewkesbury Abbey".

Also known as "King Edward IV Withheld by Ecclesiastics from Pursuing

Lancastrian Fugitives into a Church".

Artist: Richard Burchett (1815–75).

Date: 1867.

Current location: Guildhall Art Gallery and

London's Roman Amphitheatre, London, England.

Source/Photographer: File:Richard Burchett - Sanctuary (1867).jpg.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Among the leading Lancastrians who died on the field were Somerset's younger brother, John Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset, and the Earl of Devon.

The Prince of Wales was found in a grove by some of

Clarence's men. He was summarily executed, despite pleading for his life to Clarence, who had sworn allegiance to him in France barely a year before.

Many of the other Lancastrian nobles and knights

sought Sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey. King Edward IV

attended Prayers in the Abbey, shortly after the battle. He granted permission for the Prince of Wales, and others slain in the battle, to be buried within the Abbey, or elsewhere in the town, without being quartered, (the dead body being cut into quarters) as traitors, as was customary.

However, two days after the battle, The Duke of Somerset and other leaders were dragged out of the Abbey, and were ordered by the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Norfolk to be put to death after perfunctory trials. Among them were Hugh Courtenay, younger brother of the Earl of Devon, and Sir John Langstrother, the Prior of the Military Order of Saint John. The Abbey was not officially a Sanctuary, though it is doubtful whether this would have deterred King Edward IV even if it had been. The Abbey had to be re-Consecrated, a month after the battle, following the violence done within its precincts.

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Tewkesbury Abbey was founded in 1087

and Consecrated in 1121.

Photo: 14 July 2011.

Source: Own work.

Permission: Outside of Wikimedia Foundation projects, attribution is to be made to:

W. Lloyd MacKenzie, via Flickr @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/saffron_blaze/

Author: Saffron Blaze.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Nave,

Tewkesbury Abbey,

Gloucestershire, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury (commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey), in the English County of Gloucestershire, is the second-largest Parish Church in the Country and a former Benedictine Monastery. It is one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Britain, and has probably the largest Romanesque Crossing Tower in Europe.

The Chronicle of Tewkesbury records that the first Christian worship was brought to the area by Theoc, a Missionary from Northumbria, who built his Cell, in the Mid-7th-Century, near a gravel spit where the River Severn and River Avon join together. The Cell was succeeded by a Monastery in 715 A.D., but nothing remaining of it has been identified.

In the 10th-Century, the Religious Foundation at Tewkesbury became a Priory, subordinate to the Benedictine Cranbourne Abbey, in Dorset. In 1087, William the Conqueror gave the Manor of Tewkesbury to his cousin, Robert Fitzhamon, who, with Giraldus, Abbot of Cranbourne, founded the present Abbey in 1092. Building of the present Abbey Church did not start until 1102, employing Caen stone, imported from Normandy, and floated up the River Severn.

Ceiling Bosses,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The tall Norman Arch of the facade is unique in England.

Photo: 7 November 2008,

Source: From geograph.org.uk

Author: Pauline Eccles

(Wikimedia Commons)

Robert Fitzhamon was wounded at Falaise, in Normandy, France, in 1105, and died two years later, but his son-in-law, Robert FitzRoy, the natural son of Henry I, who was made Earl of Gloucester, continued to fund the building work. The Abbey's greatest single later Patron was Lady Eleanor le Despenser, last of the De Clare heirs of FitzRoy. In the High Middle Ages, Tewkesbury became one of the richest Abbeys of England.

After the Battle of Tewkesbury, in the Wars of the Roses, on 4 May 1471, some of the defeated Lancastrians sought Sanctuary in the Abbey. The victorious Yorkists, led by King Edward IV, forced their way into the Abbey; the resulting bloodshed caused the building to be closed for a month, until it could be purified and re-Consecrated.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the last Abbot, John Wakeman, surrendered the Abbey to the Commissioners of King Henry VIII on 9 January 1539. Perhaps because of his co-operation with the proceedings, he was awarded an annuity of 400 Marks and was Ordained as the first Bishop of Gloucester in September 1541. Meanwhile, the people of Tewkesbury saved the Abbey from destruction. Insisting that it was their Parish Church, which they had the right to keep. They bought it from the Crown for the value of its Bells and Lead Roof, which would have been salvaged and melted down, leaving the structure a roofless ruin. The price came to £453.

The Pulpit and Rood Screen,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Bells merited their own free-standing Bell-Tower, an unusual feature in English sites. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1541), the Bell-Tower was used as the Gaol for the Borough, until it was demolished in the Late-18th-Century.

The Central Stone Tower was originally topped with a Wooden Spire, which collapsed in 1559 and was never rebuilt. Some restoration, undertaken in the 19th-Century, under Sir Gilbert Scott, included the Rood Screen, that replaced the one removed when the Abbey became a Parish Church.

Flood-waters, from the nearby River Severn, reached inside the Abbey during severe floods in 1760, and again on 23 July 2007.

The Rood Screen,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Church is one of the finest Norman buildings in England. Its massive Crossing Tower was said to be "probably the largest and finest Romanesque Tower in England" by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner. Fourteen of England's Cathedrals are of smaller dimensions, while only Westminster Abbey contains more Mediaeval Church Monuments.

Notable Church Monuments surviving in Tewkesbury Abbey include:

1107 — When the Abbey's Founder, Robert Fitzhamon, died in 1107, he was buried in the Chapter House, while his son-in-law, Robert FitzRoy, Earl of Gloucester (an illegitimate son of King Henry I), continued building the Abbey;

1375 — Edward Despenser, Lord of the Manor of Tewkesbury, is remembered today chiefly for the effigy on his Monument, which shows him in full colour, kneeling on top of the Canopy of his Chantry, facing toward the High Altar;

1395 — Robert Fitzhamon's remains were moved into a new Chapel built as his Tomb;

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 18 January 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: Poliphilo.

(Wikimedia Commons)

1471 — a brass plate on the floor, in the centre of the Sanctuary, marks the grave of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, the son of King Henry VI, and the end of the Lancastrian line, who was killed in the Battle of Tewkesbury — the only Prince of Wales ever to die in battle. He was aged only 17 at his death;

1477 — the bones of George, Duke of Clarence (brother of Edward IV and Richard III), and his wife, Isabelle (daughter of "Warwick, the Kingmaker"), are housed behind a glass window in a wall of their inaccessible Burial Vault, behind the High Altar;

1539 — the Cadaver Monument, which Abbot Wakeman had erected for himself, is only a Cenotaph, because he was not buried there.

Also buried in the Abbey, are several members of the Despenser, de Clare and Beauchamp families, all of whom were generous benefactors of the Abbey. Such members include Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick, and his wife, Cecily Neville, Duchess of Warwick, sister of "Warwick, the Kingmaker".

The Rood Screen,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Interior,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 11 July 2010.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davehamster/5254627495

Author: David Merrett

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey's 17th-Century Organ – known as the Milton Organ – was originally made for Magdalen College, Oxford, by Robert Dallam. After the English Civil War, it was removed to the Chapel of Hampton Court Palace, and came to Tewkesbury in 1737. Since then, it has undergone several major rebuilds. A specification of the Organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register. In the North Transept is the stupendous Grove Organ, built by the short-lived partnership of Michell & Thynne in 1885. The third Organ in the Abbey is the Elliott Chamber Organ of 1812, mounted on a movable platform.

The Bells at the Abbey were overhauled in 1962. The Ring is now made up of Twelve Bells, hung for Change Ringing, cast in 1962, by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough. The inscriptions of the old 5th and 10th Bells are copied in facsimile onto the new Bells. The Bells have modern cast-iron headstocks and all run on self-aligning ball bearings. They are hung in the North-East corner of the Tower, and the Ringing Chamber is partitioned off from the rest of the Tower. There is also a Semi-Tone Bell (Flat 6th), also cast by Taylor of Loughborough in 1991.

The Old Clock Bells are the old 6th (Abraham Rudhall II, 1725), the old 7th (Abraham Rudhall I, 1696), the old 8th (Abraham Rudhall I, 1696) and the old 11th (Abraham Rudhall I, 1717). In Saint Dunstan's Chapel, at the East End of the Abbey, is a small disused Bell, inscribed "T. MEARS FECT. 1837".

The Rood Screen,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Stained-Glass Windows,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey Bells are rung from 10:15 a.m., to 11:00 a.m., every Sunday, except the first Sunday of the Month (a quarter peal). There is also ringing for Evensong, from 4:00 p.m., to 5:00 p.m., except on the third Sunday (a quarter peal) and most fifth Sundays. Practice takes place Thursdays from 7:30 p.m., to 9:00 p.m.

The Market Town of Tewkesbury developed to the North of the Abbey precincts, of which vestiges remain in the layout of the streets and a few buildings: The Abbot's Gatehouse; the Almonry Barn; the Abbey Mill; Abbey House; the present Vicarage and some Half-Timbered dwellings in Church Street. The Abbey now sits partly isolated in lawns, like a Cathedral in its Cathedral Close, for the area surrounding the Abbey is protected from development by the Abbey Lawn Trust, originally funded by a United States benefactor in 1962.

The Nave Ceiling,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Clerestory,

Tewkesbury Abbey, England.

Photo: 29 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: User:Mattis.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Abbey possesses, in effect, two Choirs. The Abbey Choir sings at Sunday Services, with children (boys and girls) and adults in the morning, and adults in the evening. Schola Cantorum is a professional Choir of men and boys, based at Dean Close Preparatory School and sings at weekday Evensong, as well as occasional Masses and Concerts.

The Abbey School, Tewkesbury, which educated, trained and provided Choristers to sing the Service of Evensong, from its Foundation in 1973 by Miles Amherst, closed in 2006; the Choir was then re-housed at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and renamed the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum.