Abbey Dore - Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity and St Mary

The view from the lych-gate is of a tall and strangely-shaped building, with an oddly-placed tower. The explanation of Abbey Church of the Holy Trinity and St Mary (Historic Churches Trust) is that what you see is the eastern half of the great church of the Cistercian abbey founded here in 1147.

The nine-bay nave has disappeared, except for a single arch and a column to the west of the present church, and so have the monastic buildings. After the Dissolution in 1535 the abbey was granted to John Scudamore, who allowed it to fall into ruin, and the stone was removed for buildings elsewhere. In 1632 his descendant, the 1st Viscount Scudamore, a good churchman and a friend of Archbishop Laud, restored what was left of the church, blocking the arch leading into the nave and building a tower in the angle of choir and south transept. He employed the famous Herefordshire architect-craftsman John Abel to build wooden roofs over the choir and crossing to replace the fallen stone vaults, to construct the heavy wooden screen between choir and crossing, and to make the west gallery and almost all the furniture now in the chancel.

The screen bears the arms of Charles I in the centre, flanked by those of Scudamore and Laud. Scudamore also filled the three east windows with contemporary glass, and recovered the great stone altar-slab, 12 feet in length, from farm use. The aisles, still with their stone vaults, continue behind the high altar to form an ambulatory, also vaulted, from which opened five chapels. There are heraldic tiles in the sanctuary floor, two battered tombs of knights, and early 18th century texts and a Royal Arms painted on the wall of the crossing.