Hailes Abbey
Winchcombe, Gloucestershire
13th century Cistercian abbey.
It has massive windbraces and huge cross beams, still bearing the axe marks of pillagers. It is thought that the Saxon builders of the chapel may have made use of an earlier, possibly even Roman building.
The chapel has a Norman rectangular nave and a tiny chancel linked to it by a narrow Saxon arch. The chancel houses a Jacobean canopied oak pulpit and arcaded reading desk, oak benches of 1597, fine altar rails of the 17th century and an altar itself of the 15th century with the original Mensa slab scratched with the five crosses, symbolizing the five wounds of Christ.
