Priory Church, Great Malvern

The Priory is probably the main tourist sight of the town, apart from the hills above. To the west next to the Abbey Hotel is the old Priory Gatehouse with a fine panelled front to the town. Externally the church seems nearly all Perpendicular in style, and owes much to the designs at Gloucester, of which the tower is a sort of dumpier version. The south transept has disappeared (arch filled by huge organ inside), and like the surviving north transept was much lower than the nave and aisles and may mark the height of the building before rebuilding. The Lady Chapel too has gone, just the door to the passage survives under the great east window (again as at Gloucester). Here too underneath are two Norman exposed shafts and a rib of the former Norman crypt.

(Information provided by Phil Draper)