Abbey House History

 

Malmesbury's hill-top has been inhabited for centuries. Evidence of an Iron Age fort was uncovered in 1999. Material from the excavation of a coffin found in the grounds of The Abbey House in 1997 is the first recorded evidence that the Romans were in Malmesbury.


A religious site was established by Maelduf around 642, and his pupil Aldhelm became the first abbot of the Benedictine Monastery in 675. Athelstan, Alfred's grandson and the first king of all England- crowned at Kingston - was buried at Malmesbury Abbey in 935. William of Malmesbury writes 200 years later that Athelstan's body was removed from The Abbey and placed in the Abbot's garden to avoid Norman desecration.


By the 12th century the current Abbey is completed and enjoying status as the third most important religious centre in England after Canterbury and Winchester. With the arrival of Abbot William of Colerne in 1260 a building programme begins including a new Lady Chapel, a new shrine to St. Aldhelm and new Abbot's lodging with herbarium and vinery.


The Lady Chapel was severely damaged when the Abbey spire fell by 1500.  William of Worcester recorded the spire as 431 ft. high; 28 ft. taller than Salisbury Cathedral's spire and six times higher than the remaining ruined arch today.
 
Malmesbury Abbey was one of the last Monasteries to close at the Dissolution in 1539. William Stumpe, a wealthy clothier, bought numerous properties from Henry VIII including Abbey House and was instrumental in the acquisition of the Abbey building itself for the people of the town to use as their Parish Church. William built the central part of the house you see today after l542 using the 13th century former Abbot's House as its foundations.
 
During the English Civil War strategically important Malmesbury changed hands six times. A painting called the 'Bird's Eye View' of 1648, lists The Abbey House as Mr. Ivey's house but it was used as a Governor's residence during the war.
 
 


During part of the C18th the property was owned by butcher Thomas Hill but by the beginning of the C19th it had been divided up for multiple occupancy by at least four tenant families returning to single ownership later that century first under surgeon Thomas Jones and then Dr. Spicer Jennings who bought the adjacent Cloister Gardens in 1896.


Captain Elliot Scott McKirdy bought and enlarged the house after 1902. He added a nursery wing and Servants' quarters to the east of the central building, keeping the same exterior style of the original, and using the services of architect Sir Harold Brakespear who was also working on the Abbey at about this time.


The McKirdy family remained in possession of the property until 1968 when it was bought by The Deaconess Community of St. Andrew, who used the property as a Convent and as a retreat until their return to London in 1990. The Abbey House was then essentially unoccupied until the present family acquired it in 1994, although a local interest group –the Malmesbury Preservation Trust - kept a watching brief on the property in the interim.