"A World Heritage Site"
Augustine also founded a Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and Paul outside the city walls. This was later rededicated to St. Augustine himself and was for many centuries the burial place of the successive archbishops. The abbey is part of the World Heritage Site of Canterbury, along with the ancient Church of St. Martin. A Benedictine Abbey named Christ Church Priory was added to the cathedral in the mid 900's, the formal establishment as a monastery is said to have been in 997. The Saxon cathedral was badly damaged during Danish raids on Canterbury in 1011. After the Norman conquest in 1066, Lanfranc (1070-1077) became the first Norman archbishop. He thoroughly rebuilt the ruined Saxon cathedral in a Norman design based strongly on the Abbey of St. Etienne in Caen, of which he had previously been abbot. The new cathedral was dedicated in 1077. Archbishop St. Anselm (1093-1109) greatly extended the Quire to the east to give sufficient space for the monks of the greatly revived monastery. Beneath it he built the large and elaborately decorated crypt, which is the largest of its kind in England. The murder of Thomas Becket in the north-east transept on Tuesday 29 December 1170 by knights of King Henry II was a major event in the history of the cathedral. The King had frequent conflicts with the strong-willed Becket and is said to have exclaimed in frustration, "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" The knights took it literally and murdered Becket in his own cathedral. Becket was the second of four archbishops of Canterbury who were murdered. Following a disastrous fire of 1174 which destroyed the entire eastern end, William of Sens rebuilt the quire with an important early example of the Early English Gothic design, including high pointed arches, flying buttresses, and rib vaulting. Later, William the Englishman added the Trinity Chapel as a shrine for the relics of St. Thomas the Martyr. The Corona ('crown') Tower was built at the eastern end to contain the relic of the crown of St. Thomas's head which was struck off during his murder. Over time other significant burials took place in this area such as Edward Plantagenet (The 'Black Prince') and King Henry IV. The income from pilgrims (of whose journeys are famously described in Geoffrey Chaucer's in "The Canterbury Tales") who visited Becket's shrine, which was regarded as a place of healing, largely paid for the subsequent rebuilding of the Cathedral and its associated buildings. Today the tourists still add to the income. The cathedral ceased to be an abbey during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the time of Henry VIII, Canterbury surrendered in March 1539, and reverted to its previous status of 'a college of secular canons'.
accessible by many gates, and that at the time getting back far enough within the close to get a good photo was difficult. From the aerial photo we can see structures that appear to be in the part of the position that the cloisters and some other abbey parts would be, their cloisters were to the North, but these are not mentioned on their website so are probably reused or rebuilt. A longer version of the history on the cathedral and is occupants can be seen on Wikipedia, and a description of what you can see when visiting is on sacred destinations, both links are below.
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