We May Rely Upon It That About The Year 850 There Was A Church And
Convent In The Island Of
Thorney, because about that time, London
being in the possession of the Danes, the convent was destroyed by
them (not
In the year 659, as some writers have affirmed, because
the Danes did not invade England till nearly 200 years afterwards).
The abbey lay in ruins about a hundred years, when King Edgar, at
the instance of Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury (and afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury), rebuilt this and several other
monasteries, about the year 960. Edward the Confessor, a devout
prince, enlarged this church and monastery, in which he placed the
Benedictine monks, ordered the regalia to be kept by the fathers of
the convent, and succeeding kings to be crowned here, as William the
Conqueror and several other English monarchs afterwards were, most
of them enriching this abbey with large revenues; but King Henry
III. ordered the church built by Edward the Confessor to be pulled
down, and erected the present magnificent fabric in the room of it,
of which he laid the first stone about the year 1245.
That admired piece of architecture at the east end, dedicated to the
Virgin Mary, was built by Henry VII., anno 1502, and from the
founder is usually called Henry the VII.'s Chapel. Here most of the
English monarchs since that time have been interred.
The dimensions of the abbey-church, according to the new survey, are
as follows, viz.:- The length of the church, from the west end of it
to the east end of St. Edward's Chapel, is 354 feet; the breadth of
the west end, 66 feet; the breadth of the cross aisle, from north to
south, 189 feet; the height of the middle roof, 92 feet; the
distance from the west end of the church to the choir, 162 feet; and
from the west end to the cross aisle, 220 feet; the distance from
the east end of St. Edward's Chapel to the west end of Henry VII.'s
Chapel, 36 feet; and the length of Henry VII.'s Chapel, 99 feet:
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