ed there
side by side with the monastic, far in the past, before its
re-foundation in the eleventh century.... This parochial constitution
survived the great successive shocks of change which altered or
cancelled everything else. The change from Saxon to Norman, the havoc
of civil war, the concentration of power in the Tudor crown, the
Dissolution itself, and the Reformation which followed, all left this
as they found it, or left it stronger still. To this constitution
alone the noble church was indebted for its preservation. The King
could grasp all else from pinnacle to basement, but the nave was the
parishioners', and that he could not touch. The result is a church
surviving entire and substantially as its vanished patrons and
banished brethren left it. Therefore if this church is a monument of
baronial and abbatial power long departed, it is yet more so of the
strength of the popular principle, and of the vitality of the
parochial system which survives."

In the same way the good people of Great Malvern, or Moche Malverne as
it was then termed, clubbed together and bought the Priory Church for
L200, to serve as their parish church in place of the older parish
church, which then, after two hundred and fifty years' use, was in
need of repair. Their Lady Chapel, cloisters, dormitories, Chapter
House, &c., were rased to the ground, and all that had a market value
was sold.

After the purchase of the church by the good people of Tewkesbury, the
nave seems to have been utterly neglected, and only used for purposes
of burial and for the occasional performances of stage-plays. Such
plays were acted in 1578, 1584, 1585, as is shown by items which
appear in the list of "church goods," as "sheepe skins for Christ's
garments," "shippe skins for the sinners gear," "eight heads of heare
for the Apostles and ten beardes," together with a "face or vizor for
the devil."

In 1559, on Easter morning, during divine service, the wooden spire
fell down, causing damage to the tower masonry in its fall. This
steeple may have been the original one which had been put up by
Robert, the first Earl of Gloucester.

In 1576 the two chapels of St. James and St. Nicholas were cut off
from the church and turned into a free school.

In 1582 the campanile, which stood on the north side of the church not
far from the North Transept, was converted into a House of Correction
for half the shire.

In 1593 the Corporation records state that the lon