Pictures of Yorkshire (1)

Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx ('ree-voh') was founded in 1132 as the second Cistercian abbey in England (after Waverley in Surrey, founded four years previously), when Walter l'Espec granted the Cistercians about 1000 acres of land in a valley a couple of miles from his castle at Helmsley - which is about 35 miles north of York and 30 miles west of Scarborough. 406 years after its foundation, on 3 December 1538, Abbot Roland Blyton and 21 monks signed the document of surrender, and handed the abbey over to Henry VIII's commissioners. Henry granted it to the earl of Rutland, who promptly set about pulling down parts of the abbey - and has, I can only hope, been languishing ever since in the part of hell reserved for people who wilfully destroy magnificent old buildings. Still, looking on the bright side, the damage could have been infinitely worse.

Rievaulx is just the most amazing place. I could have wandered around all day, soaking up the atmosphere, marvelling over it. At its height, it must have been utterly magnificent, mind-blowingly rich and splendid.

Click on the pics if you want to enlarge them.

The picture at the top is the presbytery looking towards the high altar (the large stone slab at the end) and here, how it looked in the Middle Ages, and looking upwards and sideways.

The outside of the refectory.

The high altar, with the now sadly non-existent shrine of St Ailred just behind it (nearest the camera). Ailred became the third abbot of Rievaulx in 1147 and died twenty years later. The shrine, made of gold and silver, must have been superb.

The chapter house. This is where the monks met every day, when a chapter of the Rule of St Benedict was read out (hence the name of the room), monastic business was conducted and discipline enforced. Important guests were welcomed here, so it's highly likely that Edward II was in this room on his visit to Rievaulx in 1322. The stones in the middle are graves of early abbots. It was in this room that Abbot Blyton and the remaining monks signed the deed of surrender in 1538.

Just outside the entry into the chapter house, this is the shrine of St William, first abbot of Rievaulx, who died in 1145; the shrine was constructed about a century later. William's remains were placed on the higher level, and the lower level was designed for pilgrims to crawl into, to get closer to the relics and thus benefit more from their miraculous properties. It would, of course, have once been highly decorated and lavish.

The refectory (upper level, where the lighter stone begins; the ground floor was an undercroft). From fragments of paint which remain, we know that the walls were pale pink.

Some pics of the abbot's lodgings, built for Ailred in the 1160s. Edward II probably stayed here in 1322.

Steps that no longer lead anywhere, and looking upwards.

What remains of the inner gatehouse.

A latrine shaft.

Flying buttresses outside the presbytery. The ground to the right was the monks' graveyard.