in the abbey. The victorious Yorkists, led by King Edward IV, forced their way into the abbey; the resulting bloodshed caused the building to be closed for a month until it could be purified and re-consecrated. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the last abbot, John Wakeman, surrendered the abbey to the commissioners of King Henry VIII on 9 January 1539. As a former monk of an endowed community, he received an annuity. This was the relatively large sum of 400 marks, but would have ceased when he was ordained as the first Bishop of Gloucester in September 1541. Meanwhile, the people of Tewkesbury saved the abbey from destruction. Insisting that it was their parish church which they had the right to keep, they bought it from the Crown for the value of its bells and lead roof which would have been salvaged and melted down, leaving the structure a roofless ruin. The price came to £453. The bells merited their own free-standing belltower, an unusual feature in English sites. After the Dissolution, the bell-tower was used as the gaol for the borough until it was demolished in the late 18th century. The central stone tower was originally topped with a wooden spire, which collapsed in 1559 and was never rebuilt. Restoration undertaken in the late 19th century under Sir George Gilbert Scott was reopened on 23 September 1879. Work continued under the direction of his son John Oldrid Scott until 1910 and included the rood screen of 1892. Flood waters from the nearby River Severn reached inside the Abbey during severe floods in 1760, and again on 23 July 2007. Construction time-line 23 October 1121 – the choir consecrated 1150 – tower and nave completed 1178 – large fire necessitated some rebuilding ~1235 – Chapel of St Nicholas built ~1300 – Chapel of St. James built 1321–1335 – choir rebuilt with radiating chantry chapels 1349–59 – tower and nave vaults rebuilt; the lierne vaults of the nave replacing wooden roofing 1400–1410 – cloisters rebuilt 1438 – Chapel of Isabel (Countess of Warwick) built 1471 – Battle of Tewkesbury; bloodshed within church so great that it is closed for purification The building The church itself is one of the finest Norman buildings in England. Its massive crossing tower is noted in Pevsner's Buildings of England to be "probably the largest and finest Romanesque example in England". Fourteen of England's cathedrals