selected quotes from web: http://www.canterburytrust.co.uk/schools/keysites/staug.htm The abbey of Saints Peter and Paul, which is situated outside the eastern walls of the City of Canterbury, is the oldest Anglo-Saxon abbey in England. It was founded by St Augustine and King Aethelbert in about 598 and from its earliest years was intended as a burial place for the archbishops of Canterbury and the kings of Kent. As it housed the monks sent from Roman for the conversion of the English, it became a great centre of learning. The abbey was the fourteenth richest in England according to a valuation of 1535 with a gross income of £1,733. At the Dissolution in 1538 this income and the great complex shown on the plan overleaf were ripe for exploitation by Henry VIII. As it happened, the king decided to keep the abbot's lodging as a new royal palace in Canterbury. He later ordered that a new adjoining range of buildings be constructed on the south side of the Inner Great Court where the east and west ranges had been adapted for his use. This was for his new queen, Anne of Cleves, who was expected in England shortly. Three hundred or so workmen consequently worked day and night from 5th October to 21st December 1539 (thirty one dozen extra candles were ordered and charcoal in earthenware braziers was used to dry out the plaster in a hurry). Al was just ready for the Lady Anne to stay there one night on 29th December before moving on to meet the king at Rochester. After this the palace was rarely used by Henry VIII and his successors (Elizabeth I briefly in 1573, Charles I in 1625 and Charles II in 1660). It was granted to Cardinal Pole (1556-8) and later part of the palace was leased as a nobleman's house, to Lord Cobham for thirty years from 1564, and to Edward Lord Wotton from 1612. He employed John Tradescant the elder to lay out the gardens east of the palace, as shown on the fine plan of Canterbury of c. 1640. The palace remained intact, though becoming increasingly ruinous, until the end of the seventeenth century and it was perhaps the great storm of 1703 which finally destroyed the buildings, since it caused the fall of the northern half of 'Aethelbert's Tower' _________________________________________________________________ It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today! http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger