General History of Bath. 53 



interest. The beautiful church, fast approaching comple- 

 tion, the precinct of the priory, and the monastic estates 

 in Lyncombe, Widcombe, and Walcot parishes were granted 

 to a speculator, Humphrey Colles, who two days afterwards 

 sold them to Edmund Colthurst. 



. For a period of fifty years there was utter desolation. 

 The Abbey Church was used as a quarry of hewn stone ; 

 the stores which had been accumulated for its completion 

 (including 480 tons of lead) were plundered, and the Hospital 

 of St. John the Baptist and the city churches were allowed 

 to fall into decay. 



During this dreary period Abbot Feckenham, 



p °' who had been imprisoned during part of the 



reigns of Henry VHI. and Edward VI., but 

 who on Mary's accession was made Abbot of Westminster, 

 tried to do something for the poor lepers, whom the dis- 

 solution of the Priory had left without any resource. He 

 suffered during Elizabeth's reign twenty -three years of 

 durance, and was three times tortured. But he was some- 

 times allowed out of prison "on licence," and made use 

 of his temporary liberty to found a little hospital for lepers 

 near the Hot Bath, which he placed under the direction 

 of the master of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, at 

 Holloway, in the suburbs of the city. This little hospital, 

 though insignificant in itself, yet proved the commencement 

 of the provision for the sick poor visiting Bath which cul- 

 minated in the existing " Mineral Water Hospital." 



Probably by an accident, the grant to Colles did not 

 include the whole of the monastic property, and Edward 

 VI., in 1552, made a grant of the remainder to the citizens. 

 Trusts were declared for the maintenance of a Free Gram- 

 mar School, still existing under the name of' King Edward 



