Rebuilding the Abbey Church
The most important part of an abbey church was its eastern end — here were the altars and the choir where the monks worshipped.
The most ambitious part of the 13th-century modernisation of the abbey was the reconstruction and enlargement of the east end of the abbey church. The plan was inspired by the new abbey church at Westminster, largely rebuilt by Henry III between 1245 and 1272. Abbots of Battle attending the king's court next to Westminster Abbey would have seen and admired it. By adopting the plan and extending the new seven-bay choir to the east, the Battle monks gave themselves a spacious setting of some magnificence with a grand chevet of five radiating chapels beyond the high altar.
The sloping ground here enabled the builders to include a crypt with a further five chapels under the east end. This more than doubled the number of available altars, important to a community with an increasing number of ordained monks, each needing to celebrate mass daily.
The crypt was partly excavated and conserved in 1817 by Sir Godfrey Webster. More systematic archaeological exploration took place in the 1930s, following a fire in the west range, and in the late 1970s when the abbey was acquired for the nation.
( photo captions )
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A cutaway reconstruction of the east end of the abbey showing the crypt with the choir and high altar above.
- Plan of the abbey church before and after its extension.

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The High Altar of Battle Abbey
The 11th-century Church
The East Range
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The Cloister
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Parlour
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The Duchess of Cleveland's Walled Garden

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