In 1282, the church was consecrated by Thomas, later Saint Thomas Cantilupe with armed guards ringing the building. He was Bishop of Hereford and the consecration was carried out in the teeth of opposition from the Bishop of St. David's. He also claimed jurisdiction and the active support of some local lords - many of whose families were to be buried in the Abbey as its importance grew...

You can still see the altar stone in the church. It has the place for a relic and the five consecration crossses cut into it. After the Abbey's dissolution, in 1536/7, the altar stone was lost. At the 1630s restoration, a wooden communion table was made, which can be seen in the ambulatory. However, the altar stone was found, being used for salting meat at the nearby farm, and returned.

The Abbey's life ended in the Dissolution of the Monasteries carried out by Henry VIII. It is likely some worship continued in a part of the church, but it was not until the 1630s that John, Viscount Scudamore, paid an enormous sum for its restoration to expiate the guilt he felt at inheriting church lands. The nave was blocked off, a tower built, and the roof repaired. The design of the church was that of his friend William Laud, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, whose coat-of-arms can also be seen at the entrance to Lambeth Palace chapel in London.