Rievaulx Abbey, Rievaulx, Ryedale, North Yorkshire

Photograph taken September 1988 © Copyright Historic England Archive Photo Library ref: j880323

The ruins of Rievaulx Abbey, looking towards the chancel of the 13th-century monastery church. Rievaulx Abbey was once one of the foremost Cistercian monasteries in Britain and was founded in a remote valley in the Yorkshire Wolds. After the dissolution the site was granted to the Earl of Rutland along with the Helmsley estates. This site is now in the care of English Heritage (2010).

Location

North Yorkshire Rievaulx

Period

Medieval (Middle Ages) (1066 - 1484)

Themes

A nunnery was first documented here in 603. A monastery was founded during the abbacy of Aldhelm (c675-705). It became Benedictine in the reign of Edgar (959–975) and remained so until dissolved in 1539. The final Abbey Church was built circa 1160-70 and had 13th/14th and 15th century additions. The 431 feet (131 m) tall spire, collapsed in a storm around 1500. The west tower fell around 1550. As a result of these two collapses, less than half of the original building stands today. The abbey was closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII. It was sold, with all its lands, to William Stumpe, a rich merchant. He gave the abbey church to the town for continuing use as a parish church, and filled the abbey buildings with twenty looms for his cloth-weaving enterprise.
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Rievaulx Abbey, Rievaulx, Ryedale, North Yorkshire

Location

Period

Themes

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