Page "Pershore Abbey" Paragraph 7

Pershore suffered worse misfortune when according to Leland, it was destroyed by fire and subsequently deserted by the monks, probably in the year 1002.

The monastic archives were largely lost in the event, as no original record from before that date survives today.

Pershore, however, found a generous patron in the wealthy nobleman Odda of Deerhurst ( d. 1056 ), who restored many of its lands and granted new ones.

It has been suggested that he was a kinsman of the ealdorman Æthelweard.

The earliest extant record from the archive of Pershore, a charter of 1014 by which King Æthelred granted Mathon ( Herefordshire ) to ealdorman Leofwine, may testify to Odda's restorations of lands to the house.

The monastery was active again by the 1020s, as its abbot Brihtheah was promoted bishop of Worcester in 1033.

Odda's brother Ælfric was buried at Pershore in 1053, joined three years later by Odda himself.