It had a nave with aisle
and chancel. Its total length was about 140 feet, its width about 61
feet. It is conjectured that the north-western tower was converted into
a kind of antechapel or entrance porch for the Church of St. Andrew.
There was a door leading from the aisle of the Abbey Church into the
chancel of St. Andrew's; this door, walled up, may still be seen in the
fifth bay from the west end. In order to avoid the necessity of
returning again to the history of this church, it may here be stated
that it was rebuilt by John Wheathampstead after he had been re-elected
to the office of Abbot in 1451; and that it was destroyed after the
dissolution of the monastery, when there was no longer any need for it,
as the parishioners bought the Abbey Church for parochial use. The place
of the old arcading was then taken by a blank wall without any windows;
this was pulled down and the present wall built by Lord Grimthorpe.
In the latter half of the thirteenth century the reconstruction of the
eastern end was begun by Abbot John of Hertford. Here, as in many other
churches, the Norman choir was too short for thirteenth-century
requirements. The walls of the presbytery were raised and its
high-pitched roof converted into a flat one.
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