The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, commonly known as Bath Abbey, is a parish church of the Church of England and former Benedictine monastery in Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in the 7th century, it was reorganised in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries; major restoration work was carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s. It is one of the most significant examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in the West Country. The medieval abbey church served as a sometime cathedral of a bishop. After long contention between churchmen in Bath and Wells the seat of the Diocese of Bath and Wells was later consolidated at Wells Cathedral. The Benedictine community was dissolved in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The church architecture is cruciform in plan and can seat up to 1,200 people. An active place of worship, it also hosts civic ceremonies, concerts and lectures. There is a museum in the cellars.
The abbey is a Grade I listed building, particularly noted for its fan vaulting. It contains war memorials for the local population and monuments to several notable people, in the form of wall and floor plaques and commemorative stained glass. The church has two organs and a peal of ten bells. The west front includes sculptures of angels climbing to heaven on two stone ladders, representing Jacob's Ladder.
History
Early history
In 675 AD, Osric, King of the Hwicce, granted the Abbess Berta or Bertana 100 hides near Bath for the establishment of a convent. This religious house became a monastery under the patronage of the Bishop of Worcester. King Offa of Mercia successfully wrested "that most famous monastery at Bath" from the bishop in 781. William of Malmesbury tells that Offa rebuilt the monastic church, which may have occupied the site of an earlier pagan temple, to such a standard that King Eadwig was moved to describe it as being "marvellously built". In 944 Folcwin reformed the Abbey of Saint Bertin in France along Benedictine lines and monks who opposed the reform fled to England. King Edmund I gave them the church at Bath, which was then in royal hands. Little is known about the architecture of this first building on the site. Monasticism in England had declined by that time, but Eadwig's brother Edgar (who was crowned "King of the English" at the abbey in 973) began its revival on his accession to the throne in 959. He encouraged monks to adopt the Rule of Saint Benedict, which was introduced at Bath under Abbot Ælfheah (St. Alphege), who also repaired the church. Sometime in the 10th century, as a result of the monastic reforms of Oswald and Dunstan, the monastic community of the site was re-established as a Benedictine monastery, which it remained until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century.
Norman Conquest to the Dissolution
Bath was ravaged in the power struggle between the sons of William the Conqueror following his death in 1087. The victor, William II Rufus, granted the city to a royal physician, John of Tours, who became Bishop of Wells and Abbot of Bath. Shortly after his consecration John bought Bath Abbey's grounds from the king, as well as the city of Bath itself. Whether John paid Rufus for the city or whether he was given it as a gift by the king is unclear. The abbey had recently lost its abbot, Ælfsige, and according to Domesday Book was the owner of large estates in and near the city; it was likely the abbey's wealth that attracted John to take over the monastery. By acquiring Bath, John also acquired the mint that was in the city.
In 1090 he transferred the seat, or administration, of the bishopric to Bath Abbey, probably in an attempt to increase the revenues of his see. Bath was a rich abbey, and Wells had always been a poor diocese. By taking over the abbey, John increased his episcopal revenues. William of Malmesbury portrays the moving of the episcopal seat as motivated by a desire for the lands of the abbey, but it was part of a pattern at the time of moving cathedral seats from small villages to larger towns. When John moved his episcopal seat, he also took over the abbey of Bath as his cathedral chapter, turning his diocese into a bishopric served by monks instead of the canons at Wells who had previously served the diocese. John rebuilt the monastic church at Bath, which had been damaged during one of Robert de Mowbray's rebellions. Permission was given to move the see of Somerset from Wells—a comparatively small settlement—to the then walled city of Bath.
When this was effected in 1090, John became the first Bishop of Bath, and St Peter's was raised to cathedral status. As the roles of bishop and abbot had been combined, the monastery became a priory, run by its prior. With the elevation of the abbey to cathedral status, it was felt that a larger, more up-to-date building was required. John of Tours planned a new cathedral on a grand scale, dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but only the ambulatory was complete when he died in December 1122. He was buried in the cathedral. The most renowned scholar monk based in the abbey was Adelard of Bath; after his various travels he was back in the monastery by 1106.
The half-finished cathedral was devastated by fire in 1137, but work continued under Godfrey, the new bishop, until about 1156; the completed building was approximately 330 feet (101 m) long. It was consecrated while Robert of Bath was bishop. The specific date is not known; however, it was between 1148 and 1161.
In 1197, Reginald Fitz Jocelin's successor, Savaric FitzGeldewin, with the approval of Pope Celestine III, officially moved his seat to Glastonbury Abbey, but the monks there would not accept their new Bishop of Glastonbury and the title of Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury was used until the Glastonbury claim was abandoned in 1219. Savaric's successor, Jocelin of Wells, again moved the bishop's seat to Bath Abbey, with the title Bishop of Bath. Following his death the monks of Bath unsuccessfully attempted to regain authority over Wells. There were 40 monks on the roll in 1206.
Joint cathedral status was awarded by Pope Innocent IV to Bath and Wells in 1245. Roger of Salisbury was appointed the first Bishop of Bath and Wells, having been Bishop of Bath for a year previously. Later bishops preferred Wells, the canons of which had successfully petitioned various popes down the years for Wells to regain cathedral status. The great Romanesque cathedral church, begun in the early twelfth century, was allowed to fall into chronic disrepair during the fifteenth century. In 1485 the priory had 22 monks. When Oliver King, Bishop of Bath and Wells (1495–1503), visited Bath in 1499 he was shocked to find this famous church "ruined to its foundations". He also described lax discipline, idleness and a group of monks "all too eager to succumb to the temptations of the flesh".
King took a year to consider what action to take, before writing to the Prior of Bath in October 1500 to explain that a large amount of the priory income would be dedicated to rebuilding the cathedral. There are several stories that, on a visit to Bath, King had a dream in which he "saw the Heavenly Host on high with angels ascending and descending by ladder" which is now represented on the west front of the cathedral. However, this interpretation, which first appeared in the writings of John Harington, around 100 years after it was supposed to have happened, has been challenged.
Robert and William Vertue, the king's masons were commissioned, promising to build the finest vault in England, promising "there shall be none so goodely neither in England nor France". Their design incorporated the surviving Norman crossing wall and arches. They appointed Thomas Lynne to supervise work on site and work probably began the following spring. Oliver King planned a smaller church, covering the area of the Norman nave only. He did not live to see the result, but the restoration of the cathedral was completed just a few years before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539.
Prior Holloway surrendered Bath Priory to the crown in January 1539. It was sold to Humphry Colles of Taunton. The abbey was stripped of its co-cathedral status in the aftermath of the Dissolution when the cathedral was consolidated in Wells. The church was stripped of iron, glass and £4,800 worth of lead and left to decay. Colles sold it to Matthew Colthurst of Wardour Castle in 1543. His son Edmund Colthurst gave the roofless remains of the building to the corporation of Bath in 1572. The corporation had difficulty finding private funds for its restoration.
In 1574, Queen Elizabeth I promoted the restoration of the church, to serve as the grand parish church of Bath. She ordered that a national fund should be set up to finance the work, and in 1583 decreed that it should become the parish church of Bath. James Montague, the Bishop of Bath and Wells from 1608 to 1616, paid £1,000 for a new nave roof of timber lath construction; according to the inscription on his tomb, this was prompted after seeking shelter in the roofless nave during a thunderstorm. He is buried in an alabaster tomb in the north aisle. The restoration work on the Abbey financed by Montague was completed by 1611.
Modern renaissance
During the 1820s and 1830s buildings, including houses, shops and taverns which were very close to or actually touching the walls of the abbey were demolished and the interior remodelled by George Phillips Manners who was the Bath City Architect. Manners erected flying buttresses to the exterior of the nave and added pinnacles to the turrets.
Major restoration work was carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s, funded by the rector, Charles Kemble. The work included the installation of fan vaulting in the nave, which was not merely a fanciful aesthetic addition but a completion of the original design. Oliver King had arranged for the vaulting of the choir, to a design by William and Robert Vertue. There are clues in the stonework that King intended the vaulting to continue into the nave, but that this plan was abandoned, probably for reasons of cost. In addition a stone screen between the choir and nave was removed. Scott's work was completed by his pupil Thomas Graham Jackson in the 1890s including work on the west front. Gilbert-Scott also designed the finely carved pews in the nave, which are among the finest examples of Church seating from the period, and have been described as "one of the most magnificent and extensive suites of Victorian church seating in the country".
Work carried out in the 20th and 21st centuries included full cleaning of the stonework and the reconstruction of the pipe organ by Klais Orgelbau of Bonn. The west
front of the building, having decayed badly in the 500 years since it was built, has been subject to almost wholesale restoration. The stonework of the west front had been subject to natural erosion therefore a process of lime-based conservation was carried out during the 1990s by Nimbus Conservation under the guidance of Professor Robert Baker who had previously worked on the west front of Wells Cathedral. Some of the damage to sculptures had been made worse by the use of Portland cement by previous work carried out in the Victorian era. A statue of St Phillip was beyond repair and was removed and replaced with a modern statue by Laurence Tindall.
Rectors of Bath Abbey
- 1583–1584 John Long
- 1584–1608 Richard Meredith (as Dean of Wells from 1607)
- 1608–1621† John Pelling
- 1621–1634 George Webb (appointed Bishop of Limerick)
- 1634–1639 Theophilus Webb (son of George Webb)
- 1639–1665† James Masters (sequestered by the Westminster Assembly; restored; Sub-Dean of Wells from 1661)
- 1666–1680† Joseph Glanvill
- 1681–1711† William Clement (as Archdeacon of Bath from 1690)
- 1711–1733† William Hunt (as Archdeacon of Bath)
- 1733–1752† Thomas Coney
- 1752–1767† Duel Taylor
- 1767–1768† John Taylor
- 1768–1786† John Chapman (as Archdeacon of Bath)
- 1786–1815† James Phillott (as Archdeacon of Bath from 1798)
- 1815–1837† Charles Crook
- 1839–1854 William Brodrick (later Viscount Midleton and Dean of Exeter)
- 1854–1859† Thomas Carr (formerly Bishop of Bombay)
- 1859–1874† Charles Kemble
- 1875–1895 Richard England Brooke (grandfather of Rupert Brooke)
- 1895–1901 John Quirk (appointed Bishop of Sheffield)
- 1902–1938 Sydney Boyd (as Archdeacon of Bath from 1924)
- 1938–1947 William Selwyn (as Archdeacon of Bath; appointed Bishop of Fulham)
- 1947–1960 Edwin Cook (as Archdeacon of Bath)
- 1960–1989 Geoffrey Lester
- 1990–2000 Richard Askew
- 2001–2003 Simon Oberst (resigned, disqualified from priesthood)
- 2004–2017 Edward Mason
- 2019–2025 Guy Bridgewater
- 2025–Present Chantal Mason (Acting Rector)
† Rector died in post