History

The Church of St Mary, Abergavenny, is not an ordinary Church, having been originally the Church or Chapel of the Priory and the monks settled there. This Priory was a Monastery of Benedictine or Black Monks, founded in the reign of Henry I (1100 – 1135) by Hameline de Balun, or Baludun, the first Norman Lord of Abergavenny, and was therefore intimately connected with the Lordship. The Town of Abergavenny was the Capital of the Lordship, and was a walled town. The ancient Church of St John stood within the walls, the Priory and its Church being outside the town, by the East Gate. After the Dissolution of the Priory, in 1543, Henry VIII founded the Grammar School, which he endowed with some of the revenues and possessions of the suppressed priory and granted the Old Parish Church of St John for the school building, and in lieu of it, the PrioryChurch to the parishioners for their ParishChurch.

St Mary’s Church Floorplan

At the Dissolution the Establishment consisted of a Prior and four Monks. The possessions of the Monastery were granted to James Gunter, of Breconshire, and continued in his family till the beginning of the last century, when Mary, daughter and heiress of James Gunter, of the Priory, married George Milbourne, of Wonastow, and so conveyed the Priory and its Estates to him. They, together with Wonastow, descended to their son Charles, who married Lady Martha Harley, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, and their only daughter and heiress, Mary, carried them to her husband, Thomas Swinnerton of Butterton in Stafforshire, whose daughter and co-heiress, Elizabeth, married Charles Kemeys Tynte, Esq., of Cefyn-Mabli, conveying the Priory Estates to him. His son, Charles Theodore Kemeys Tynte, Esq., of Bridgwater in Somersetshire, is the present owner of the property and Lay Rector.

The Church was cruciform, with a central Tower, eastward of which (or beneath which, as some Authorities fancy) was the Monks’ Choir, with its twenty-four stalls, twelve on each side, of carved oak of the 14th Century, which remain to the present time. Richard Symonds, in his Diary states that, at the time of his visit, in 1645, there was ‘A very faire rood loft and old organs’. The Transepts were extended eastward by the erection of aisles opening into the Choir, and these aisles seemed to have been used as burial places, first of the Lords of Abergavenny, and subsequently of other notable personages of the district.

The South Aisle acquired the name of the Herbert Chapel, and the North that of the Lewis Chapel. The Choir and Chancel are of great length, and it is possible that there may have been a Lady Chapel beyond the High Altar, seeing that the Church was dedicated to St Mary the Virgin.

At some period there must have been a violent and systematic destruction of the tombs, canopied Images, and brasses. The stained glass in the windows, displaying sundry coats of arms, etc, was destroyed or lost much about the same period. The most probable time of this destruction was the period of the Rebellion, in which sad destruction of monuments and other objects in churches was committed by soldiers of the Commonwealth throughout the land. RaglanCastle, held by the famous Marquess of Worcester, was one of the last to fall to General Fairfax, whose soldiers, during the long siege, were quartered in and around this town. At some period, perhaps in 1828, when very extensive alterations and repairs were made, or subsequently, such of the fragments as could be found seem to have been collected and fitted together, so as to make up the tombs again, and it is difficult to determine whether the various parts so refitted really belonged, or formed a portion of the Reredos, perhaps of the Lady Chapel, as many of the figures of Saints and holy persons have special allusion to the Virgin Mary.

The first notice we have of AbergavennyChurch and its monuments is in a poem, entitled ‘The Worthiness of Wales’ written near the end of the 16th Century, by Thomas Churchyard. He lived in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and seems to have made a tour in Wales in 1586. This poem, dedicated to Her Most Excellent Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, gives much information respecting the Church and the Monuments, verses from which are frequently quoted in the following notes. The poem was first published in 1587 and reprinted in 1776.

In the ‘Diary of the Marchings of the Royal Army’ in 1645, kept by Richard Symonds, who accompanied King Charles I in his visit to Monmouthshire in that year, we have a more detailed account of the monuments and stained-glass windows. Richard Symonds’ Diary was printed by the Camden Society in 1859. The Monuments were all standing undisturbed in 1646, and since that date we have no record of them, and it neither seems to be known at what precise time the monuments were destroyed, nor when they were repaired.

In about the year 1828 extensive alterations were made to the church, both externally and internally, the money being raised by a loan from the Exchequer Loan Commissioners on the Church rates and by the sale of pews!

The Chancel was stripped of its leaded roof, lowered several feet, and slated, the parapet around set back, leaving the corbels exposed. This destroyed the Clerestory windows, distinct traces of which are still to be seen from the Priory gardens. Internally, a lath-and-plaster groined roof was erected, and this appears to have necessitated a smaller East Window, hence the fine old Norman window, traceable still from the outside, was filled in, and the present unsightly structure erected. The Sanctuary walls were covered by a wooden dado and plastered carving. A Vestry, raised some four feet above the Choir, was constructed in the South Transept, and the Lantern Windows of the LanternTower hidden by a lath-and-plaster groining, to harmonize with the similar groining of the Choir and Chancel.

The alterations to the Nave were still more startling, and are perhaps best described by Sir Gilbert Scott, who in 1874 reported, from a survey of the Church which he then made, as follows:

‘Few Churches have suffered from decay and injudicious repair than this … The most outrageous treatment has, however, been reserved for the interior of the Nave. Early in the present century the Nave and its North Aisle were thown into one, by the destruction of the ancient arches and columns which separated them. A new roof, covering the two, was added, galleries were erected, running round the four sides of the parallelogram thus formed: a Pulpit and reading desk placed at the West End, the pews facing westwards, and the Arch leading eastward into the Chancel filled with drapery.’

This arrangement effectually separated the Choir and the Chancel from the Nave. Somewhere about this period the former, together with the Chapels, appear to have been used as a School; to this may possibly be attributed the wanton disfigurement of tombs and Choir Stalls by thoughtless youths carving their initials and names upon them.

In 1882, during the vicariate of the Rev, Canon Bury Capel, MA, a thorough restoration of the Church was begun. The Nave and North Aisle were practically rebuilt, as far as possible on the original lines, but with a fine arcade of five bays in the late decorated style, and a handsome narthex at the West entrance erected.

In 1896, during the vicariate of the Rev F W G Whitfield, MA, the Chancel, which had remained closed, was re-opened, the Vestry in the South Transept removed, the Transepts and the Chapels partly renovated, and the whole of the East End of the Church brought into use and made available for congregational purposes.

Much remains to be done. A complete restoration of the Chancel, Choir and Chapels is greatly to be desired, which would include, among other things for the Chancel, an open timbered roof of suitable design, following the visible lines of the original roof and replacing the present sham groining, and leaving exposed the Clerestory windows, which would be repaired and re-glazed, and the restoring of the magnificent East Window. The windows in the Herbert Chapel are in a very precarious state, and if they are to be preserved at all, their reparation should be undertaken at once, for the mullions and portions of the tracery in some parts are in the last stage of decay. The floor also requires lowering in order to expose the bases of the monuments. The Tower externally and internally requires careful renovation, which would include, internally the removal of the lath-and-plaster groining and the present ringing floor. This would expose the four single-light 14th century windows, three of which are now filled with masonry which entirely hides their tracery. These windows would be re-glazed, and the Tower once again fulfil its purpose as a lantern.

Thus, under a judicious and careful plan of restoration and decoration, would a Church, of which the town and county be well proud, be made worthy of its historical associations and unique position at the gate of Wales, and, better still, of the worship and glory of God.

‘This is the Westminster Abbey of South Wales, for the great ones of all the ages lie here – Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor and Stuart – with carved wood or marble or freestone above them.’

History

Monuments

Walls hangings

Remembrance

The Bells