No trace remains above ground of Aldhelm's monastery, and the precinct has not been subject to any modern archaeological investigation. 1 We are forced therefore to rely on clues found in documentary sources, such as the works of Aldhelm and William of Malmesbury, when trying to reconstruct the early monastic campus. In the Gesta Pontificum William stated that a ‘very small church’ reputed to have been built by Máeldub was extant until his own time, and he also described how Aldhelm built new churches for the community.

In another part of the Gesta Pontificum William stated that the chief monastic church was dedicated not just to St Peter but jointly to ‘the chief of the apostles, Peter and Paul’, and this church ‘was from of old the centre, the place at which the monks came together’. William's account of the monastic campus is consistent with early English and contemporary Frankish usage, with two main monastic churches ‘one dedicated to an apostle or martyr, the other to St Mary’. William indicated that, in addition, there were at least two other smaller churches: the chapel of Máeldub and a church dedicated to St Michael, which was probably a mortuary chapel, given that such chapels were often dedicated to St Michael, an archangel who could act as a guide to the dead on their journey to Heaven. Significantly William preserved the tradition that Aldhelm was initially buried in St Michael’s.

One of Aldhelm's poems supports the idea that he built a substantial church at Malmesbury which was dedicated jointly to St Peter and St Paul. This source also gives us some flavour of the collective worship in the church.