DEERHURST.

Deerhurst, or Deorhurst--the wood or grove of wild beasts, as its
etymology implies--lies close to Tewkesbury, and the visitor to the
latter must on no account omit to pay a visit to the older building.
It may be reached by a pleasant walk through meadows on the left bank
of the Severn, by the road or by a path across the fields.

The Priory church of Deerhurst is one of the oldest buildings of any
importance that yet remain in use in England. Its exact date is more
or less a matter of conjecture, but it seems certain from documentary
evidence, which is still accessible, that in the ninth century the
Abbey or Priory was in a prosperous condition--the document referred
to above being a grant of lands in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire
to the Abbey in 804. No earlier authentic evidence than this exists,
though a _lapsus calami_ of Leland (who credits the Venerable Bede
with an acquaintance with Deerhurst about the year 700) would seem to
give it an earlier date. From the earliest time Deerhurst--situated
where it is, so near that great highway the Severn, and occupying a
position on the direct line of traffic by road between Worcester and
Gloucester, must have had an important part to play. Legend has it
that Edmund Ironside and Canute, intent on fighting a duel after
Essendune, met at Olney in 1016, but settled matters without coming to
blows, and later tradition affirms that this meeting took place in the
meadow--once an island or eyot, hence its present name--called the
Naight.

Tradition, again, has it that the Abbey suffered from the Danes, and
this seems likely enough, seeing that they were encamped at
Cirencester for fully a year. Werstan, one of the monks who escaped
from the Danes, is said by Leland to have founded a cell at Malvern,
and was later murdered by the Danes in his own chapel there. In the
windows of Malvern Priory he is described as "Sanctus Werstanus
Martir," but little else is known about him.

The Abbey, though small, was richly endowed with land, and is said to
have been possessed of nearly forty thousand acres. Its wealth in
landed property was the cause of its being transferred by Edward the
Confessor in 1054-56 to the great French Abbey of St. Denis; and what
was not so transferred was mostly given by the King, together with the
Manor of Pershore and other possessions, to his Abbey of St. Peter at
Westminster, which was then building.

The Abbey lost its importance when i