666, Founded by Frithwaldus, governor of the province of Surrey under Wulfar, King of Mercia—Church and conventual building burnt by the Danes in the 9th century—964, Refounded by King Edgar for Benedictine monks—1110, The abbey rebuilt—15—, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £659, 15s. 8d.
It is indeed a national loss that of this noble and extensive foundation, consisting formerly of a monastic church, a hospitium, two mills, a bridge and a few buildings beyond the Thames, practically nothing should remain save two walls and an arched gateway.
“So total a dissolution I scarcely ever saw,” says Dr Stukeley, “human bones of the abbots, monks, and great personages who were buried in great numbers in the church and cloisters were spread thick all over the garden so that we may pick up handfuls of bits of bones at a time everywhere among the garden stuff.”
Excavations undertaken by the Surrey Archæological Society have brought to light some of the foundations of the abbey, carved stones, stone coffins, and several monumental tiles illustrating the Arthurian legends. A piece of the chapter-house flooring and part of a stone chair have also been discovered. This ancient monastic foundation in Chertsey attained to great magnificence, its head becoming one of the mitred abbots, and consequently enjoying all the privileges of a seat in Parliament. The abbots of Chertsey suffered little, if at all, from molestations from without, or from rebellion and schism within. They cultivated vineyards, hunted hares and foxes, and retained peaceful and uninterrupted possession of the manor for close on 500 years. Though at the time of the Dissolution Henry VIII. appeared to relent his drastic measures with regard to this foundation, yet one year only elapsed between the placing of the Chertsey monks in the refounded priory of Bisham in Berkshire and the compulsory surrender to the Crown of the newly formed religious establishment.
The irregularly built market town of Chertsey in Surrey is situated on the banks of the Thames, and is connected with Middlesex by the seven-arched stone bridge which spans the river. Here lived and died Abraham Cowley, a poet of great celebrity in his day, who, after being ejected from Cambridge as a Royalist in 1643, engaged actively in the royal cause and obtained at the Restoration the lease of a farm at Chertsey which he held under the Queen. In the old church of Chertsey the curfew is regularly tolled upon a bell which was used for generations in the abbey.
[READING (Mitred Benedictine)]
1126, Built and endowed by Henry I.—Dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist—1121-1467, Parliaments held here—15—, Dissolved. Henry Farringdon, last abbot of Reading, executed at Tyburn.
“Hugh, Abbot of Reading, and his convent, reciting by their deed that King Henry I. had erected that abbey for the maintenance of monks then devoutly and religiously serving God, for the receipt of Strangers and Travellers, but chiefly Christ’s poor people, they therefore did erect an Hospital without the gate of the abbey there to maintain 26 poor people; and to the maintenance of Strangers passing that way they gave the profits of their mill at Leominstre. Also Aucherius, Abbot of Reading, built near this abbey a house for lepers that was called St Mary Magdelene’s, allotting for their sustenance sufficient of all things as well in diet as other matters.”
The foregoing extract from Dugdale’s Monasticon indicates the pious and generous motives which inspired the endowment of the once important mitred abbey of Reading. The abbots of Reading ranked next to those of Glastonbury and St Albans, their influence extending far beyond the precincts of the monastery.
Built upon the site of an ancient nunnery, the abbey ruins are beautifully situated on an eminence overlooking the river Kennet to the south and the Thames to the north. From the remaining portions it can be seen that the abbey church consisted of a nave and choir, both with aisles, transepts with eastern chapels, and also a Lady chapel—the entire length being 420 feet. The chapter-house on the east side of the cloister adjoins the south transept and possessed an apse in which were five large windows. On the south side of this cloister garth stood the Norman refectory. The stone facings of the buildings have been removed, leaving only flintstone, but fortunately the abbey mill still stands intact. Henry I. and his two queens, Matilda and Adeliza, were buried in Reading Abbey, though by some strange fancy of disseveration the king’s bowels, brains, heart, eyes and tongue were buried at Rouen. Many real or fancied relics of saints were presented to the abbey. Among other singular objects of the time was one assumed to be the head of the Apostle James—later the hand of this Apostle was brought from Germany by the Empress Maud—carefully enclosed in a case of gold, of which it was afterwards stripped by Richard I. It seems like some curious pioneer movement of foreign missions when one reads that the “maintenance of two Jewish female converts” was imposed on this house by King Henry III.