The town of Bath wasn’t much in the Middle Ages, but an important church has stood on this spot since Anglo-Saxon times. King Edgar I was crowned here in 973, when the church was much bigger. This abbey – the last great church built in medieval England, is 500 years old and a great example of the Late Perpendicular Gothic style. It has enough stained glass to earn it the nickname “Lantern of the West”
This impressive church encapsulates Bath’s long history in stone. It stands near the mineral springs where, even in pagan times, people came to worship. Christianity arrived, a monastery was built here in the 8th century, then a larger church in the 11th century. This present church was started in 1499.
No sooner was the church finished than it was stripped of its furnishings by King Henry VIII (1539), who dissolved the monastery and sold off its valuable lead roof and glass windows. At the same time, the statue of Peter on the outside of the building lost its head to mean-spirited iconoclasts; it was re-carved out of Peter’s once super-sized beard. 🙂
Queen Elizabeth I began repairing the abbey her father had plundered. In 1608, Bishop James Montague took over. One rainy day, he saw water dripping down inside the church, and vowed to finish the ceiling. Thanks to Montague we have one of the abbey’s most splendid features – the fan vaulting. Montague’s coat of arms, with three diamonds and eagles, are symbols found throughout the church.
On both walls of the abbey are gravestones honoring Bath’s notable citizens (there are more than 600 memorials to the deceased found in the church. Near the right transept, one will find a gravestone on the wall for “Ricardi Nash” – better known as Beau Nash, Bath’s 18th century master of festivities. We met him at the Pump House yesterday. 🙂
In the right transept we will also find the 15-foot tall stone Wallace Memorial. It depicts the renowned English Civil War general Sir William Wallace relaxing after liberating Bath from royalists. But the focus here is on his young wife Jane, who died young. Now they gave into each other’s eyes for all eternity.
My eyes continue to rise to the appreciate the intricacy of the fan vaulting and the brilliance of the windows. The glass, red iron lamps and the heating grates on the floor are all remnants of the 19th century. In a nice 21st century touch, the heat now comes from the bath’s hot runoff water.
The abbey was damaged by a WWII bomb blast – so most of the windows we see today is from the 1950s.
Behind and above the Altar, the large window shows 52 scenes from Christ’s life – one for each week of the year! The window to the left of the altar shows King Edgar being crowned. Edgar was one of the first monarchs of what is now called England. His coronation in AD 973 established the protocols used by all future English monarchs up to the present – it all started here in Bath. 🙂
