 egun in 1499, Bath Abbey is the last great gothic church in England. It is a cruciform building the size of a small cathedral, seating around 1,200 people.
Bath Abbey stands at the heart of the city of Bath; during the past twelve and a half centuries, three different churches have occupied this site:
- An Anglo-Saxon Abbey Church dating from 757, pulled down by the Norman conquerors of England soon after 1066;
- A massive Norman cathedral begun about 1090. It was larger than the monastery could afford to maintain and by the end of the 15th century was in ruins;
- The present Abbey church founded in 1499, ruined after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by order of Henry VIII, was completed in 1611.
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