Roof Angel - Wymondham Abbey - Wymondham, Norfolk
Posted by: SMacB
N 52° 34.226 E 001° 06.457
31U E 371750 N 5826168
An accurate copy of one of Wymondham Abbey's splendid roof angels.
Waymark Code: WMYEZM
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/07/2018
Views: 0
An accurate copy of one of Wymondham Abbey's splendid roof angels. The roof is a wonderful single hammerbeam construction, dating from ca. 1445, one of the finest angel roofs in Norfolk. The quality of carving, structural carpentry and the level of detail in this roof is outstanding; this would have been a very expensive construction.
"There has been a church on this site for well over 1000 years. In Saxon times, Wymondham probably had a Minster church serving the town and surrounding communities. After the 1066 Norman Conquest, the land passed to the d’Aubigny family from Normandy. In 1107, William d’Aubigny founded a Benedictine monastery here as a ‘daughter house’ of the great St Alban’s Abbey.
The church was a grand stone structure used by the small community of monks and also by the parishioners of the town. This arrangement caused frequent disputes, and in 1249 the Pope ruled that the church should be clearly divided. The eastern half was to be used by the monks, the western half became the town’s parish church.
Over the centuries, the church saw many changes. New towers were built, the nave was raised with a magnificent angel roof, and the parish church was enlarged with a wide north aisle in Gothic style. In 1448, the priory became an independent abbey, one of the richest in Norfolk. But when King Henry VIII became head of the English church, he closed all monasteries in the land. In 1538, the Wymondham monks surrendered to the king. Their part of the church was taken down, and today only the parish church survives. Significant changes since then include the enlarging of the south aisle in the 1540s, the installation of the great organ in 1793 and the addition of Sir Ninian Comper’s gilded altar screen as a First World War memorial."
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