Tewkesbury Abbey is testament to how much churches change over the millenia some of them have stood. Its walls are rich with the scars of history, where entire buildings used to stand there is now only the marks of their passing.

We are lucky it stands at all.

Much of the earlier abbey complex was destroyed with the Dissolution of the Monastries. The church itself was only saved when the locals claimed it as their parish church and paid the crown the value of the scrap: lead in its roofs and bells, around £453.

It doesn't sound much today but that represented a massive amount for them to raise, estimated at £500,000 but more likely over a million in today's money.

And we have to thank them for it. They saved what is considered one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in the country, and one every time the country floods provides one of England's most iconic images, the abbey standing defiant as an island, as it has done for hundreds of years.