Tewkesbury - Abbey

The name of the town comes from Theoc, an Anglo-Saxon who is said to have founded a hermitage here in the 7th century, which was called Theocsbury.

The cell was succeeded by a monastery in 715. In the 10th century it became a priory subordinate of the Cranborne Abbey. In 1087, William the Conqueror gave the manor of Tewkesbury to Robert Fitzhamon, who, with the Abbot of ranborne,founded the present abbey in 1092. Building of the present abbey church did not start until 1102, employing Caen stone imported from Normandy.

Robert Fitzhamon died in 1107, but his son-in-law, Robert FitzRoy, who was made Earl of Gloucester, continued to fund the building work.

In the High Middle Ages, Tewkesbury became one of the richest abbeys of England.

After the Battle of Tewkesbury in the Wars of the Roses in 1471, some of the defeated Lancastrians sought sanctuary in the abbey. The victorious Yorkists, led by Edward IV, forced their way into the abbey; the resulting bloodshed caused the building to be closed for a month until it could be purified and re-consecrated.

After the dissolution of the monasteries the people of Tewkesbury saved the abbey from destruction. Insisting that it was their parish church which they had the right to keep, they bought it from the Crown for £453.