Malmesbury Wessex Week 2024
Come along to the Tony McAleavy talk on Wednesday 23rd October in The Old Bell and learn about William Stumpe!
William Stumpe is well known as the man who rescued part of the medieval Abbey at Malmesbury and gave it to the town as a parish church in the 1540s. What is less well known is the way that this self-made man and his family used their money to buy their way into the highest levels of English society where their descendants remain today. Tony McAleavy has been researching the rags to riches story of the Stumpes of Malmesbury and has discovered that King Charles III is a direct lineal descendant of William Stumpe. Tony will explain the astonishing tale of the ambitious Stumpes and their links with royalty during his Wessex Week talk at the Old Bell on 23 October at 7.30 pm.
Come along to the Tony McAleavy talk on Saturday 26th October in Malmesbury Abbey where Tony will reveal some exciting findings!
Malmesbury Abbey is famous for its Romanesque architecture but it has not been known precisely when it was built because no surviving documents from the period have been found describing and dating the rebuilding. Historians have had to use the style of the building as a rough guide to the date of the building. Until now. Tony McAleavy has recently found a contemporary manuscript from the Abbey in Oxford University that allows us for the first time to understand exactly when the building work started and the precise day, month and year when the first part of the new church that we see today was ready for use by the monks. Tony will reveal his findings during his Wessex Week talk to be held appropriately in the Romanesque Abbey church on 26 October at 7.30 pm.
Event Information
| Event Date | Sat 19-Oct, 2024, 7:00 pm |
| Event End Date | Sat 26-Oct, 2024, 7:30 pm |
