An architectural handbook of Glastonbury Abbey : with a historical chronicle of the building / by Frederick Bligh Bond.

  • Frederick Bligh Bond
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An architectural handbook of Glastonbury Abbey : with a historical chronicle of the building / by Frederick Bligh Bond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    31/128 (page 25)
    famous, the bells, seven in number, which were in the central tower, and five in another tower, described as the steeple [clocherio]. The central tower of the church had almost certainly been completed in the time of Abbot Fromond (1303-1322), as, if Abbot de Sodbury had been the builder, it is hardly likely that John of Glaston, who gives so ample a list of his works, would have failed to record it. Abbot de Sodbury also gave a great organ, and various altars and ornaments.* With the death of this Abbot, which took place in 1334, we begin to hear of burials in the nave. His tomb was there, with the tombs of his father and mother 011 his right and left. John of Breynton succeeded him in 1334, and he completed the Great Hall, spending £1,000. His gifts to the church were of a minor nature for the adornment of altars. Walter de Monyngton, who succeeded him in 1342, was another great builder, and we are told by John of Glaston that he added greatly to the monastic buildings, whilst Leland tells us that he increased the length of the Presbytery, i.e., the choir, by two arches—thus making it six arches in length, in place of four. He also re-faced the interior of the choir walls and re-vaulted the whole area. The retro-choir, or space to the eastward of the high altar, containing the ambulatory or processional way, and a row of chapels behind it (see plan), was also carried out eastward by him, and the fragments of walling still visible at the east end of the choir enclosure are of his work. Abbot Monington also built the western half of the Chapter house, which was in the position usual in Benedictine monasteries, and abutted upon the east walk of the cloisters, which were here¬ upon the south side of the church. His work in the church itself will be dealt with in detail in the architectural chapter on the choir, Abbot John Chinnock, who succeeded in 1374, finished Monington's work, built the Dormitory and Fratry, re-built the Cloisters, and is said by Leland to have completed the Chapter * John of G., p. 263.