By Harold Brakspear, F.S.A. 467 



The little old church noticed by Leland adjoining the south 

 transept was probably St. Michael's, some traces of the original 

 building being noticed by William of Malmesbury. Aubrey states 

 but without giving an authority, that the present abbey house 

 occupies the site of this church. 1 



The third church, St. Mary's, was somewhere on the site of its 

 successor, the great twelfth-century church, but no trace of it has 

 ever been found. Nothing of Elfric's rebuilt church is in existence 

 above ground, nor does it seem to have influenced the setting out 

 of the later church in any way. 



The Church. 



The great Norman church, of which the present is a fragment, 

 consisted of presbytery with aisles and apsidal end, transepts with 

 eastern chapels, a tower over the crossing, and a nave of nine bays 

 with aisles and a great south porch. 



The original presbytery might be expected to have followed the 

 west country fashion, like Gloucester, Tewkesbury, and Worcester, 

 of having two or three straight bays with aisles, these latter being 

 continued around an eastern apse with three small chapels pro- 

 jecting therefrom. Nothing remains above ground to show if this 

 was the arrangement, but a foundation 12 ft. wide with rounded 

 outer face occurs at 80 ft. from the east side of the crossing. When 

 this is set down on plan it proves itself to have been the foundation 

 of the outer wall of an ambulatory end, and gives three straight 

 bays, of equal width to those of the nave, to the presbytery, like 

 Gloucester. No indications of the three chapels have been found, 

 but as they occurred in all other ambulatory ends it is only 

 reasonable to suppose that they existed here. 



A fragment of the westernmost bay remains attached to the 

 north-east pier of the crossing, and shows that the principal lines 

 of the eastern arm were carried through into the nave. The main 

 arcade springs from a respond similar to the eastern responds of 

 the nave, but whether the arches were round or pointed cannot 

 be determined with certainty. Above the arches is a string-course 



1 Wiltshire Collections, p. 260. 



