It is recorded that the first Christianity was brought to Tewkesbury by Theoc, a missionary from Northumbria. A monastery was built around 715, but nothing of it remains.
The foundation at Tewkesbury became a Priory in the 10th century and was associated with a BenedictineAbbey at Cranbourne in Dorset.
William The Conqueror gave the Manor of Tewkesbury to a cousin, Robert Fitzhamon. He, with the Abbot of Cranbourne, Giraldus, founded the present abbey in 1092.
The building of the present Abbey began in 1102, with stone brought from France.
Fitzhamon died in 1107, and his son-in-law Robert Fitz Roy, son of HenryI continued to fund the work. Tewkesbury became one of the wealthiest Abbeys in England.
When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the people of Tewkesbury saved the Abbey from destruction.
They insisted it was their parish church, and so for the value of the bells and lead roof which would all have been melted down, they bought the Abbey for £453.
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