CHAPTER VI
WILTSHIRE: HAMPSHIRE: DEVONSHIRE
MALMESBURY: LACOCK: NETLEY: BEAULIEU: ROMSEY: SHERBORNE: CERNE: TAVISTOCK: BUCKLAND: BUCKFASTLEIGH
MALMESBURY (Mitred Benedictine)
[MALMESBURY (Mitred Benedictine)]
—, Founded by Maydulphus—635, King Berthwald gives land at Summerford on Thames to the monastery—680, The monastery receives the town of Malmesbury from Lutherius, Bishop of Winchester—1248, Pope Innocent confirms the various grants and ordains that the rules of St Benedict “should always be observed here”—1539, Dissolved. Annual revenue, £803, 17s. 7d.
AS in the case of Abingdon, the ruins of “the right magnificent abbey” of Malmesbury have been ruthlessly encroached upon—squalid streets and shabby houses crowd about its walls, and only a small stretch of land remains undisturbed in the immediate precincts of the abbey. One indignity upon another has been heaped upon this monastery (with which the name of St Aldhelm is inseparably connected), which formerly stood second alone to Durham for beauty of situation and majesty of aspect. At the Dissolution, one William Stumpe, clothier, bought the monastery with the adjoining land for the extraordinarily large sum of £1117, 15s. 11d., selling the nave of the abbey soon afterwards for use as a parish church. The conventual buildings he converted into a mill for the weaving of cloth—whilst small houses were built and streets laid out over the gardens and orchards. Later on, the conventual buildings were turned into a stone quarry, and to-day nothing remains of them except
