Tewkesbury Abbey: Explore Robert fitzHamon's Parish Church in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire

After leaving Cardiff Bay we went to Monmouth Castle. There were only a couple of walls, but the military museum next to it had some interesting stuff. Monmouth Castle was built from 1066-1067 by William fitzOsbern; the same man who built Chepstow. It sits on a hill overlooking the River Monnow. It was briefly held by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, then by Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, who rebuilt the timber structure in stone and added the Great Hall. King Edward II was held as prisoner at Monmouth briefly, and King Henry V, son of Henry Bolingbroke and Mary de Bohun, was born there. Oliver Cromwell had the castle slighted in 1646, and the round tower collapsed after an attack on 30 of March. The Great House was built in 1673 on the site, and is now the home of the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers Militia and their museum. Following are links to people associated with Monmouth Castle that we are descended from:
William fitzOsbern
www.missouri-mule.com/fitzosbe...
Mary de Bohun
www.missouri-mule.com/bohun.html
King Edward II
www.missouri-mule.com/longshan...
Edmund Crouchback
www.missouri-mule.com/mowbray...."Crouchback",%20Earl%20of%20Lancaster
Since Monmouth turned out to be nothing much, we managed to get to Tewkesbury barely in time to go in. As with most churches, except for Canterbury, it was free. We had planned to stay the night around there and visit the abbey the next morning, but I saw a sign for the abbey before we saw any hotels so we stopped. The sign out front (or was it back?) said we had about an hour before they closed the gate, but we left after that time and they were still open. People were arriving so there must have been something going on.
Officially called the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury Abbey is deceptively large and beautiful. Other pictures, taken from vantage points we didn't have access to, give a better indication of the size and building style. Even before entering the church we were impressed by the enormous Deodar Cedar and Copper Beech trees.
Building of the abbey began in 1102 by Robert fitzHamon. He was wounded at Falaise in Normandy and died in 1107, but the work was continued by his son-in-law, Robert fitzRoy, Earl of Gloucester. However, there had been centers of Christian worship on the site, or near to it, since the mid-7th century. The church was made of Caen Stone imported from Normandy and floated up the Severn River.
Following the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471 some Lancastrians fled into the abbey, but the Yorkists forced their way in and slaughtered them. The church was closed for a month so it could be cleaned and re-consecrated. It was surrendered to the Crown at the Dissolution of the Monasteries on 9 January 1539. The townspeople claimed it was their parish church and bought it from the Crown for the value of its bells and lead roof, totaling £453. The bell tower was used as the jail, or gaol, until it was demolished in the late 18th century. The original central tower, the largest Romanesque tower in England, was topped with a wooden spire, but that collapsed in 1559 and was never rebuilt.
Of interest are the church's organs, three of them, one dating to the 17th century though it has been rebuilt several times. Also there are many well known and important people buried there. Below are links to our pages for some of them.
Robert fitzRoy, Earl of Gloucester (we have listed him as Robert "the King's Son" de Caen)
www.missouri-mule.com/fitzrobe..."the%20King's%20Son"%20De%20Caen
Robert fitzHamon
www.missouri-mule.com/montgome...
Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford
www.missouri-mule.com/declare1...
Gilbert "the Red Earl" de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester
www.missouri-mule.com/reddecla..."the%20Red%20Earl"%20de%20Clare
Hugh le Despenser - both "the Elder" and "the Younger"
www.missouri-mule.com/despence...
Tewkesbury Abbey Official Site
www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk
Tewkesbury Abbey on Facebook
/ tewkesburyabbey

[@nancytestani1470]

Incredible.

[@mikesaunders4775]

A really good film. There are people out there making longer and wordier videos on similar subjects that don't say half as much. You deserve a lot more views.

[@momsuktrip9729]

Thank you. I put a lot of work into my descriptions and on-screen text. It's not easy to get so much information into a small amount of space. This one was particularly difficult, especially since I was not planning to make these videos when I took the pictures.