Abbey Church Of St Mary And St Aldhelm

MATERIALS: limestone ashlar with stone tiles

STYLE: late Romanesque style C12 work

Decorated Gothic style C14 extensions

Inner wall of N transept has blocked 2-centred aisle arch containing a C16 doorway and 3-light mullion window, and a blind round-arched doorway to the right

6-bay N elevation has a blind former cloister wall along the aisle divided by buttresses, with a roll-top coping, and round-arched windows above a cill band containing C14 tracery, with a steep gable in the fourth bay containing a 3-light Decorated tracery window

at the left end is a blocked, round-arched C12 doorway with an archivolt of relief palmettes, and a cusped cinquefoil arch set within

The C14 clerestory has flying buttresses with tall pyramidal pinnacles between 3-light 2-centre arched windows, 2-light at the E end, with paterae to each side of the three E windows

The arcade continues along the former external side of the S transept and to the 9-bay S elevation, otherwise as the N side with a Decorated cusped openwork parapet to aisle and nave, and with second and third bays from E containing C14 2-centre windows with Decorated tracery

C12 porch rebuilt externally in C14 with angle buttresses

richly carved with iconographic Biblical scenes set in oval panels

separated by richly carved mouldings

Inside is a similarly-moulded doorway and C14 door

beneath a tympanum of Christ in Glory supported by 2 angels

beneath finely-carved lunettes each of 6 Apostles with a horizontal flying angel above

S side of the central entrance bay has the jamb of a round-arched entrance with 2 orders carved as the S porch and plain capitals

beneath the jamb of a large C14 W window with the springers of 4 cusped transoms

attached shaft extends up from the piers to C14 tas-de-charges

lierne vault with carved bosses

The C12 aisles have pointed quadripartite vaults and benches, the blind arcade of the outside beneath the windows, on the S side without the middle columns

the E end bays have C15 stone screens with Perpendicular tracery

To the left of the entrance is a winder stair to the C14 parvis over the porch, which has C20 panelling

MEMORIALS: running counter-clockwise from the entrance, a wall monument to Joseph Cullerne, d1764, a marble panel with raised bracketed top section

wall monument to Robert Greenway, d1751, a marble shield

wall monument to Bartholomew Hiren, d1703, a panel with a broken pediment

wall monument to Dame Cyscely Marshal

with a slate panel in a carved alabaster frame

to the left a late C17 cartouche with drapes

in the N aisle, a dresser tomb of King Athelston, d939, with narrow buttresses to the sides, with a recumbent figure of the King with his feet on a lion, and a vaulted canopy behind his head

wall monument to Elizabeth Warneford, d1631, a slate plaque set in a moulded alabaster frame with shields along the sides, a cartouche, and a segmental cornice over

wall tablet to Elizabeth George, d1806, a well-carved cartouche with putti below

wall tablet to Mary Thomson, d1723, a stone panel with draped surround including an hour glass

Set in the chancel floor are a group of 8 brasses from late C17 to mid C18

FITTINGS: include a round C15 font from St Mary Westport (qv), with a turned base and fluted sides

at the W end of the nave, is the font used since the C17

glass case containing a verge of 1615

carved with features of the Abbey

GLASS: mostly C14 glass in the N aisle

HISTORICAL NOTE: the use of pointed arches and vaults in the aisles is structurally advanced and transitional with Early Gothic, and links Malmesbury with subsequent West Country churches, but the carving is Anglo Saxon in character, and probably borrowed from manuscript illustrations