36 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1912 



But Coker states that the Monastery was built in 1044, and ' stored ' 

 with Benedictine Monks from Cerne. 



It would seem from the rules drawn up by Orcus, for his gild or lay 

 fraternity of St. Peter's at Abbots, that a society existed here previously, which 

 later was converted into a Monastery. 



William the Conqueror confirmed what Edward had done and Henry III. 

 confirmed all the Charters granted by William, Henry I., Stephen and Henry II. 



In 1315, Edward TI.'s time, there was a dispute over a crassu spiscis 

 (Pwhale) and the King confirmed the light of the Monastery to the wreck of 

 the sea. 



And so on and so forth down to 135.1, when grave complaint was made 

 against the Abbot Walter de Stokes. He was removed by the King, and 

 Bishop of Sarum, and died in 1354. In the 15th century we do not hear 

 much. At a visitation by Bishop Chandler, the Abbot Roger Roddon, was 

 warned that as ' wine and women cause men to err,' he was to buy as little 

 wine as possible and give it out in small vases — vessels. And women were 

 to be kept out. 



In the valor of 1535, the income was taken to be £-\o\. Roddon surren- 

 dered the Abbey in 1539, and with eight of his brethren received pension of 

 /80. The value was then taken to be (480 ; but this, for some reason or 

 other seems to have been too low a valuation. The Strangeways family 

 who purchased the buildings and Abbotsbury lands from Henry VIII, for 

 iio<.)C) los. come into view first in 1505, when a charity was founded in 

 the Chapel of St. Mary within the Abbey by Thomas Strangeways, the 

 Executor of his late wife .Mianor. They were the ancestors of the present 

 owner, Lord Ilchester. 



Very little of the Monastic buildings now remain. The alterations 

 and rebuilding by the Strangeways, necessary when they made a mansion for 

 themselves on the site, accounts for that. 



If the last Monastic edifices were built on anything like the same majestic 

 scale as the great tithe-barn, there must have been a group of buildings of 

 surpassing magnificence. The barn is 276 feet long, with walls 3 feet 3 inches 

 thick, and its width is 31 feet. The eastern part is roofless, but the western 

 end is very perfect. Its date I suppose would be about 1350. The great 

 porches or doorways, the two on the North being much finer than the two 

 on the South, resemble the Transepts of some great Cathedral. 



The Church, the conventual one, seems to have been 102 feet in length, 

 by 54 in breadth, within the walls. Eastward of that are traces of a building 

 which may have been the Choir, or the Lady Chapel, of which Coker speaks. 

 Scraps of vaulting-ribs, bosses, bases of piers, and shafting, tell of 13th, 14th 

 and 15th century work. 



The lofty gable end, covered with ivy, otherwise the Pinion end, was no 

 doubt part of the Strangeways mansion. This was held for the King by 

 Sir T. Strangeways in the Great Rebellion. Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper in 

 September, 1644.' after desperate fighting, took the Church and burnt the 

 house. A letter is extant from the head of the Parliamentary Forces in 

 which he speaks of the ' business being extreme for six hours.' Lighted 

 furzen faggots were pushed into the lower windows, the defenders' magazine 

 blew up, and the end came. 



The Church was as gallantly defended as the house, and had to be specially 

 stormed by a party of musketeers. The Members saw evidence of their 

 presence in the bullet-holes in the fine Jacobean pulpit. 



With one exception, beside this pulpit and the effigy of an Abbot — not 

 surely a coffin-lid — put up in the porch, there is not much of note in the 

 Church. It is much disfigured by an altar-piece erected in 1751. 



