There has been a church on this site since Saxon times (750 AD). Edgar, the first king of all England was crowned here in 973.
The Roman Catholic Benedictine Abbey Church from 750AD gave way to a Norman Cathedral around 1019, which itself fell into disrepair and was replaced by the present Abbey Church in 1499. After the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII in 1539, the Abbey church looted of its stained glass windows and its roof mined for lead. The stripped and empty shell of the church was sold to a couple of private owners before one of the owners decided in 1572 to repair the church and give it to the city of Bath. Repairs started in earnest in 1576, when Queen Elizabeth I supported raising repair funds. That date was incised into the the Abbey on its southern face.
By 1616 the church was repaired and functioning again as a church, but as a parish of the Church of England.
From the Bath Abbey website: (
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"Very little is known of the Anglo-Saxon convent and monastery which existed in Bath in the centuries before the Norman Cathedral was built. It seems that there was an Abbey Church in Bath dating from around 757 AD which was part of the Benedictine monastery. This may have existed alongside the earlier convent founded by Abbess Bertana. However there is no archaeological evidence for the Anglo-Saxon Abbey itself. Even the precise site of the building cannot be confirmed, although it probably occupied at least part of the site of today’s Abbey.
King Edgar
In the 10th century England became unified under a line of kings from Wessex, beginning with Edgar whose reign began in 959. King Edgar was crowned King of all England in Bath on Whitsunday 973. The service used for Edgar’s coronation was compiled by Dunstan, who was Archbishop of Canterbury; and formed the basis of all subsequent coronation services, right up to that of the present Queen in 1953. In 1973 Queen Elizabeth II visited Bath Abbey for a service to mark 1000 years since the coronation of King Edgar. There is a stone commemorating this royal visit in the floor of the Abbey by the lectern.
St Alphege
Alphege was a Benedictine monk from Deerhurst in Gloucester who was appointed Abbot of Bath around 980 AD by Archbishop Dunstan. Whilst in Bath he lived a hermit-like life and quickly gained a reputation for his strict adherence to the ascetic lifestyle and for his sternly moral character. He was particularly scathing about those who had taken the habit without fundamentally changing their way of life. This brought him into conflict with the monks in Bath, who appear to have been extremely lax in their observance of the Benedictine Rule. Alphege quickly set about reforming the monastery, and successfully imposed his own rigorous standards of the monastic life.
In 984 Alphege was appointed Bishop of Winchester, and at fifty-two years of age was given the prestigious post of Archbishop of Canterbury in 1005. He led the church in England successfully through the turmoil and chaos of renewed and extensive attacks, but within six years Canterbury was besieged and fell to Danish invaders, They imprisoned Alphege and demanded £3,000 ransom money for his release. It was an enormous amount of money in those days and the Archbishop staunchly refused to pay, even forbidding his friends to do so, as his main concern was that those within his care were not forced to impoverish themselves even further. The Danes were so infuriated that after a drunken feast at Greenwich they clubbed Alphege to death with ox bones.
After his cruel and unjust death Alphege became a national hero. He could easily have secured his own release but chose to sacrifice himself for the welfare of his people and so quickly came to be venerated as a saint in pre-Conquest England. He is said to have been buried in the vault of the original Anglo-Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury next to Archbishop Dunstan. After the Norman Conquest in 1066 Anglo-Saxon saints such as Alphege became less popular; and the Normans began to build cathedrals all over England in their own style.
By the end of the 11th century plans had been made to replace the Anglo-Saxon Abbey with a grand Norman cathedral.
In 1088, John of Tours was made Bishop of Wells, which at this time was the seat of the Bishop and home to his cathedral. A few years later John was granted the city of Bath, the abbey and its monastic buildings and lands by King William Rufus and so was able to fulfil his desire to move the bishopric to Bath. As the Bishop of Bath, John by the early 1090s had set in hand an extensive building programme, which included plans for more monastic buildings, a Bishop’s palace, and most importantly, a vast new cathedral to replace the Anglo-Saxon abbey. By the time of John’s death in 1122 most of the lower walls of the new cathedral had been built; but the majority of the building work was masterminded by his successor, Bishop Robert of Lewes. The cathedral was probably completed and consecrated by the beginning of the 1160s.
The Norman cathedral would have been a very different size and shape from the Abbey as we see it now. The present building takes up the space occupied by just the nave of Bishop John’s cathedral. The building would have had a similar cruciform shape, but probably had a much more elaborate east end with additional towers and chapels which would have extended out far beyond the boundary of today’s abbey. Surrounding the cathedral would have been the monastic buildings and gardens, the Bishop’s palace and burial grounds.
The difference in floor levels between the Norman cathedral and the present building means that the evidence for the Norman building is to be found below the floor of today’s Abbey and the pavements outside. In the floor of the Alphege chapel there is a grille through which the remains of Norman pillars can be seen. In the Gethsemane chapel at the north east end of the Abbey, a rounded Norman window arch, built into the structure of the present wall, is clearly visible (depicted above). There are many other remnants of the old cathedral which are not so easily accessible, and can only be uncovered by archaeological excavation. Recent works revealed the remains of a Norman pavement around the south side of the Abbey.
During the 13th century Bath’s importance declined, as the Bishops moved their seat back to Wells. By this time the monastery in Bath housed about 40 monks, who made a living from the wool trade, but it was difficult to maintain the huge cathedral and all of the monastic buildings. After 1398 when the Black Death had halved the monks’ numbers the task became impossible. By the time Oliver King became the new Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1495, the splendid Norman cathedral was in a desperate state of decay.
The present Abbey church as we know it was started around 1499, but was not complete by the time King Henry VIII initiated the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. At this time, the monastery was still occupied and the church which Bishop King had begun was being used daily for prayer and worship. But the monks knew their days were numbered; and on January 27th, 1539, the site was surrendered to the crown.
The Church Commissioners offered the church to the city for 500 marks (roughly the equivalent of £160,000 today), but amazingly this was turned down, showing how far the Abbey’s standing had fallen. Similar to the fates suffered by many other great priories and churches during this time, all the valuable parts of the building were taken away, for example the beautiful stained glass windows were ripped out and the roof was stripped for the lead. In 1542 the empty shell was sold, along with the monastery, to Humphrey Colles, who sold it on to Matthew Colthurst.
In 1535 John Leyland, traveller and antiquarian visited Bath. He reported that
“Oliver King, Bishop of Bath, began of late days a right goodly new church at the west part of the old church of St Peter and finished a great piece of it. The residue of it was since made by the priors of Bath and especially by Gibbes, the last prior there, that spent a great sum of money on that fabric.”
The first sight most visitors have of Bath Abbey is the West front, with its unique ladders of Angels. The story behind this is that Bishop Oliver King is said to have had a dream of ascending and descending angels which inspired the design of the facade thousands of people gaze up at and admire today. Whatever the truth of this story, it was Bishop King who was the driving force behind plans to tear down the decaying Norman cathedral and replace it with a new building – one of the last great medieval cathedrals to be built in England.
In 1572 Matthew Colthurst’s son Edmund presented what remained of the church to the Mayor and the citizens of Bath, to be used as a parish church. Repairs to the church were started by Peter Chapman, whose memorial tablet may be seen in the north aisle.
Significantly it was Henry VIII’s daughter, Elizabeth I who made the restoration possible by supporting a national collection to raise money for the work. This was put in hand by wealthy citizens of Bath, and in particular, Thomas Bellot.
Bellot was steward to Elizabeth I’s statesman, Lord Burghley, and the executor of his estate. The sick and aged Burghley had visited Bath for its restorative waters at the end of his life. While they failed to restore him, he had become interested in the Abbey as a result of his visit, and so, his executor Bellot knew exactly what to do with his legacy.
Bellot spent lavishly on the Abbey both from Burghley's bequest as well as his own funds. James Montagu who was appointed Bishop of Bath in 1608 was responsible for repairing the roof over the nave and aisles with lead, with the underside made to look like stone. The impressive West Doors we see today were the gift of Bishop Montagu’s brother Henry, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, while many other citizens of Bath gave money towards the work. All of their names were recorded at the time in the Abbey’s Book of Benefactors. By 1616 the building we have inherited was repaired and in use. Services took place in the choir which was separated from the nave by a wooden screen provided by Bellot."