Godstow Nunnery

Rimmer was an artist and architectural historian - he published many books examining historic buildings, illustrating them himself. He published 'Pleasant Spots Around Oxford' in 1878, for which this is a prepatory sketch. The published engravings were done by Percy Roberts after Rimmer's sketches. Gostow Abbey was a Benedictine nunnery. It was suppressed in 1539 during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries and converted into Godstow House. It fell into disrepair in the English Civil War and was a ruin by the time Rimmer visited it.