Great Malvern Priory

Tuesday
We left Janet and Stuart's after breakfast, and headed first for the town of Ledbury, a thriving market town east of Hereford, which has quite a number of black and white buildings, in particular the Market House, which dominates the centre of Ledbury. This brick and timber structure, supported by massive timber columns, was built in 1653 by the celebrated "King's Carpenter", John Abel. Its original use was as a grain store, and it it now used as a council meeting room.

Having explored the town of Ledbury, we continued on to the town of Great Malvern, built on the eastern slopes  of the Malvern Hills. We walked around the town and went to see the impressive Priory, which was a Benedictine monastery c.1075-1540 and is now an Anglican parish church. During the reign of Edward the Confessor, Saint Wulfstan, the Bishop of Worcester, encouraged a hermit named Aldwyn to found a monastery in what was then the wilderness of Malvern Chase. According to the Worcester Monastic Annals this work began in 1085. On the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1541, local people raised £20 to buy the building to replace their decaying parish church. The present building dates from 1085, with mainly 15th century structure, floor, and wall tiles. Extensions to the original Norman architecture church began around 1440 in the Perpendicular style and work continued until 1502. The great square central tower is very similar to that of the nearby Gloucester Cathedral - it was built by the same masons. Having had some lunch in the town, we then went for a walk up on the Malverns, where I took this shot looking down on the Priory from above. By this time it was time to head north and return to our base in Appleton, Cheshire.

One year ago: Raindrops on hostas