464 Malmesbury Abbey. 



particulars attached to this grant is a list of buildings similar to 

 the first valuation, but with slight variations. 



At this time Malmesbury was visited by that indefatigable 

 antiquary, John Leland, who relates : — x 



Ther wer in thabbay Chirch Yard 3. Chirches : thabbay Chirch a 

 right Magnificent thing, wher were 2. Steples, one that had a mightie 

 high pyramis, and f elle daungerusly in hominum memoria, and sins was 

 not reedified : it stode in the midle of the Transeptum of the Chirch, 

 and was a Marke to al the Countre about, the other yet standith, a 

 greate square Toure, at the West Ende of the Chirch. 



The Tounes Men a late bought this Chirch of the King, and hath 

 made it their Paroche Chirch. 



The body of the olde Paroch Chirch, standing in the West [south] 

 End of the Chirch Yarde, is clene taken doun. The Est Ende is con- 

 vertid in aulam civicam. 



The fair square Tour in the West Ende is kept for a dwelling House. 



Ther was a litle Chirch joining to the South side of the Transeptum 

 of thabby Chirch, wher sum say Joannes Scoltus the Great Clerk was 

 slayne about the Tyme of Alfrede King of West-Saxons of his own 

 Disciples thrusting and strikking hym with their Table Pointelles. 



Wevers hath now lomes in this litle Chirch, but it stondith and is a 

 very old Pece of Work. . . . 



The hole logginges of thabbay be now longging to one Stumpe, an 

 exceding riche Clothiar that boute them of the King. 



This Stumpe was the chef Causer & Contributer to have thabbay 

 Chirch made a Paroch Chirch. 



At this present tyme every Corner of the vaste Houses of Office that 

 belongid to thabbay be f ulle of lumbes to weve Clooth yn, and this 

 Stumpe entendith to make a stret or 2. for Clothiers in the bak vacant 

 Ground of the Abbay that is withyn the Toune Waulles. 



The western tower of the abbey must have fallen shortly after 

 Leland's visit, and the church authorities of the time built up a 

 new west wall in line with the sixth pair of pillars, and walled up 

 the seventh bay of the south aisle so as still to allow the south 

 porch to be used as the entrance. 



Early in the seventeenth century the first known drawing of the 

 church was published in the Monasticon Anglicanwn, and it shows 

 that all four arches of the central tower were standing, and that 

 the building over the south aisle remained with a flat roof. The 

 western doorway was then complete. 



John Aubrey, the Wiltshire antiquary, criticizes this drawing 



1 Itinerary of John Leland (Oxford, 1744), ii., 25. 



