THE Duke of Gloucester was given a guided tour of Muchelney Abbey, near Langport, on a Royal Visit last Thursday.

He was shown round the grounds before being shown the earliest foundation pieces of the abbey, Anglo Saxon stonework in the south cloister walk and the magnificent fireplace and original medieval stained glass windows of the Abbot’s Great Hall.

At the end of his visit, the Duke signed the visitors’ book with a quill pen.

Muchelney is the second oldest religious foundation in the country – a monastery was founded there in 693 and developed as a Benedictine abbey in the Middle Ages.

Much of the abbey was demolished in 1538 following the Suppression, but the abbot’s lodgings and several associated buildings remained.