church of the Abbey, and most of the monastic buildings, were dismantled; the three great religious Houses of the town were levelled with the ground; the churches were stripped of their ornaments and images, and all other "monuments of superstition," and the lovely Collegiate church of the Newarke was utterly destroyed. Before the end of the century, the Berehill Cross, and most of the other Town Crosses, were pulled down, the ancient Hospital of St. John was converted into a WoolHall, and the property of all the religious Guilds and Colleges was taken away from them, and passed, in many cases, into the hands of speculators.
The effects of the 16th century cataclysm may be summarised thus:—
Two old churches had then already fallen into disuse; St. Michael's had disappeared, and St. Peter's was fast becoming a ruin. Five other parish churches in the town, those of St. Nicholas, St. Margaret, All Saints, St. Mary and St. Martin, survived the storm, stripped almost bare and impoverished, but structurally intact, and they still exist. The little church of St. Leonard survived for about a hundred years more.
The church of the Abbey, the church of the Grey Friars, the church of St. Clement, the church of the Austin Friars and the Newarke church were all dismantled or destroyed. The chapel of St. Sepulchre, or St. James, and the chapel of St. John in Belgravegate were left to decay, and fell into ruins. The little chapel on the West Bridge was converted into a dwellinghouse. The Hospital of St. John, after the failure of the WoolHall, was replaced by new almshouses, and the adjoining church of the Hospital made room for a Town Prison. The fate of Wigston's Hospital has been related already. The Hall and Chantry Houses of the Guild of Corpus Christi were bought by the Town, and are still in existence.
Some parts of the ancient walls of the Abbey may yet be seen, and particularly the brick wall in Abbey Lane, built by Bishop John Penny, at the beginning of the 16th century, which still bears his initials, wrought in ornamental brickwork, and one lonely niche, long bereft of its tutelary image. And it is
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