The Early English Lady Chapel was said to have been built between the years 1224-1227 by Ralph of Wylington, and Olympias his wife, and endowed with lands.
The church was dedicated again in 1239, in Abbot Foliot's time, by Walter of Cantelupe, "the patriot prelate who, six-and-twenty years later, stood by Earl Simon on the day of martyrdom at Evesham."
Three years after the dedication in 1242 alterations in the triforium of the nave were made, and the stone vaulting was done by the monks themselves. It was a very laudable object, but they effectually spoiled the nave. The same year saw the beginning of the rebuilding of the south-west tower, and it was finished before 1246. If this was the tower that collapsed in 1170, the monks would seem to have somewhat neglected their duty to the fabric. The Norman refectory or "frater" was demolished in 1246, and the new one begun. This building stood to the north of the cloisters, and was pulled down at the Dissolution. Of the Early English infirmary or "farmery" traces remain near the Bishop's Palace.
In this place we may refer incidentally to Gloucester Hall, Oxford, which college was founded in 1283 as a residence for thirteen monks, to be chosen out of the brotherhood at Gloucester, and sent to study at Oxford. The hall was empowered later on to receive students from other Benedictine foundations, and the buildings were enlarged for this purpose in 1298.
Fire again ravaged the Abbey and its precincts in 1300, on the feast of the Epiphany. "It began in a timbered house in the great court, from which it spread to the small bell-tower, the great camera, and the cloister" (Hope, 36). Mr Hope thinks this bell-tower was either a single western tower, as formerly there was at Hereford, or else a Norman north-west tower, and that the great camera was part of the Abbot's house, now the Deanery. Professor Freeman thinks that the small bell-tower or parvum campanile was so called as being less in height than the south-west tower rebuilt in 1245-6.
In this same fire the Norman dorter or dormitory suffered considerable damage. It was pulled down three years later, and a new one, which took ten years to build, was opened for use in 1313, after being blessed and sprinkled with holy water by the Bishop of St. David's. 1318 is a date of importance in the history of the Abbey. John Thokey, Abbot from 1307-1329, made many changes. He reconstructed the south aisle of the nave to save the south side from collapse. The windows on the outside have been restored, but the buttresses have been very little touched. Most of the tracery in the windows of the aisles and chapels of the choir, and the triforium of the choir, date back to his time.
Thokey, between 1316-1329 built the new camera of the Abbot, beside the infirmary garden (Hart, i. 55).
Thokey's successor, Wygmore, carried out the works planned previously, and in 1331-1337 the south transept was recased, and vaulted practically as we see it to-day, in the style now known as Perpendicular. Part of the front of the Deanery is presumably of the same date, though many later alterations have been made in it. Wygmore also built the double screen (vide p. 44) which separated the nave from the choir. "Parts of it," says Mr Hope, "are worked up in the present screen," and he quotes Hart, i. 47, to show that Wygmore was buried in 1337, "before the Salutation of the Blessed Mary in the entry of the quire on the south side, which he himself constructed with the pulpitum (or loft) in the same place."
The transformation of the Norman minster had thus begun. In the days of Adam de Staunton (1337-1357) the great vault of the choir was made at a great expense, together with the stalls on the Priors' side—i.e. the north side.
The oblations at the tomb of Edward II. rendered much of his extensive work practicable, as the funds of the Abbey were becoming exhausted.