The chronicles, as reprinted in "Annales Monastici" stop short in 1263, and from that time onwards there is a dearth of direct information as to the Abbey and its history.
The choir was altered in the time of Abbot Parker, by Elizabeth, the wife, successively, of Lord Badlesmere, of Hugh Lord Despenser, and Sir Guy de Brien. The original Norman clerestory was taken down and the Norman columns of the choir slightly raised, as will be seen from the choir aisle on the side where the original capitals were left unaltered. At the same time the beautiful series of apsidal chapels was added; stone vaulting took the place of the earlier wooden roofing and the space between the four piers that support the tower was vaulted. This work contains the arms of Sir Guy and of the Montacutes.
1397. The Founder's Chapel was erected by Abbot Parker.
In 1422 Henry VI. granted the patronage of Deerhurst Priory to Tewkesbury. Much litigation followed with Eton College in consequence, but in 1469 the grant was confirmed and carried out by John Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester.
On May 30, 1471, the Abbey, which had been polluted with blood during the battle of Tewkesbury, and had not been available for divine service for a month, was cleansed with special ceremony by the Bishop of Down and Connor, who was acting as suffragan to the Bishop of Worcester and reconsecrated.
At the Dissolution the whole establishment, which, from the lists of what was to be kept and what was to be destroyed, was of considerable size, was seized by the King's Commissioners. The houses and buildings assigned to remain "undefaced" were "The lodging called the New Warke, leading from the gate to the late Abbot's lodging, with buttery, pantry, cellar, kitching, larder, and pastry thereto adjoining; the late Abbot's lodging; the hostery; the great gate entering into the court, with the lodging over the same; the Abbot's stable, bakehouse, brewhouse and slaughter-house, the almery, barn, dairy-house; the great barn next Avon; the malting-house with the garners in the same, the ox-house in the Barton, the Barton-gate and the lodging over the same." At the same time "the Church, with chapels, cloisters, chapter house, misericord; the two dormitories, infirmary with chapels and lodgings within the same; the workhouse, with another house adjoining to the same; the convent kitchen; the library; the old hostery; the chamberer's lodgings; the new hall; the old parlour adjoining to the Abbot's lodging; the cellarer's lodging; the poulter house: the gardner; the almary, and all other houses and lodgings not otherwise reserved," were "deemed to be superfluous" and were committed to the custody of Sir John Whittington.
The eight bells in the tower were estimated at 146 cwt., and were ordered to be melted down, as was also the lead upon the roofs of the choir, the aisles and the chapels annexed, the cloister, chapter house, frater, St. Michael's Chapel, halls, farmery and gatehouse. The weight of lead was estimated at 180 fodders, i.e., about 190 tons.
The jewels naturally were specially reserved to the use of the King's Majesty, and the two mitres garnished with gilt, rugged pearls, and counterfeit stones, and 1,431 ounces of silver and silver-gilt plate were, together with the vestments, ornaments, and everything else of value, taken away.
The public-spirited inhabitants of Tewkesbury, however, meant to preserve their cherished Abbey from destruction if they could compass it, and after petitioning their "most dread victorious sovereign lord," succeeded in doing so for a consideration, viz., the sum of £453. This sum was arrived at by roughly valuing the lead on the roofs at 5d. a square foot, and the bells at something like 2½d. per lb. They had to pay £200 down, £100 the ensuing Easter, and the balance, £153, at Christmas. It was further stipulated that the said parishioners should "bear and find the reparations of the said church perpetually."
The word "church" in this connection seems to be limited to mean that part of the building other than the nave. The nave seems to have been looked upon as belonging, as was the case elsewhere, to the inhabitants of Tewkesbury, for their use, more or less as a parish church. Mr. Hayman says that "parochial worship was enshrined there side by side with the monastic, far in the past, before its re-foundation in the eleventh century.... This parochial constitution survived the great successive shocks of change which altered or cancelled everything else. The change from Saxon to Norman, the havoc of civil war, the concentration of power in the Tudor crown, the Dissolution itself, and the Reformation which followed, all left this as they found it, or left it stronger still. To this constitution alone the noble church was indebted for its preservation. The King could grasp all else from pinnacle to basement, but the nave was the parishioners', and that he could not touch. The result is a church surviving entire and substantially as its vanished patrons and banished brethren left it. Therefore if this church is a monument of baronial and abbatial power long departed, it is yet more so of the strength of the popular principle, and of the vitality of the parochial system which survives."