Ruins of Egglestone Abbey

Details

NZ 01 NE EGGLESTONE ABBEY ABBEY LANE (South side, off)

2/90 Ruins of Egglestone Abbey

GV I

Ruins of Premonstratensian Abbey. Church and cloister first built 1195-1225; presbytery rebuilt c.1250; nave widened to south, south transept rebuilt and west range constructed 1275-1300; cloister ranges converted to house in mid- C16. Squared stone and rubble. Plan: cruciform church, aisleless except for eastern chapels to transepts; cloister on north extending west from church; east range with chapterhouse, dorter on 1st floor and rere-dorter; north range with frater over undercroft with warming house; west range with kitchen (perhaps post-Dissolution) and perhaps guest house. Church in Transitional, Early English and Decorated styles.

Nave has chamfered plinth, pilaster buttresses on north and west, and a moulded cornice on corbels below a C15 heightening. At west end a blocked doorway, with a late C13 2-light window, replacing a pair of earlier lancets. North wall has a round-arched chamfered doorway, moulded corbels and a string- course marking the position of the cloister roof, and 2 lancets. 4-bay south wall has sill string and stepped buttresses; moulded doorway in west bay; windows of 3 lancet lights under one arch with pierced spandrels, multi- hollow-chamfered surrounds and hoodmoulds.

Only the west wall of the south transept stands, with moulded plinth and angle buttresses with gabled crocketed heads at the south-west corner; two late C13 2-light windows and a C15 stair turret.

The chancel has a chamfered plinth and stepped buttresses, the eastern moulded. Two 2-light windows on south; 2- and 3-light on north: lancet lights, under pointed arches, have jamb shafts with nail-head capitals. 5-light east window has similar surround but with straight moulded mullions. South and east windows have richer mouldings.

Interior: South-west corner of crossing shows shafted responds to crossing arches, set on corbels. Piscinae and aumbries in south and east walls of chancel. Monuments include table tomb with arcaded sides to Sir Ralph Bowes, d.1482, inscribed slab to 'T. Rokeby, Bastarde': relief cross fleury with crozier,and brass indents.

East range of cloister 3 storeys: largely mid-C16 with 2-, 3- and 4-light mullioned windows, those to ground floor with heraldic or head hoodmould stops. Interior: C16 lst-floor fireplace with flat-pointed head; the north end the C13 groin-vaulted rere-dorter undercroft with a segmental-arched fireplace. North range shows remains of warming house fireplace, and a large C16 stepped stack to north. The other domestic buildings are reduced to footings and lower courses (except for a length of wall with 2 doorways on south side of cloisters).

Historical notes: Abbey founded between 1195 and 1198 by the de Multon family, as a daughter house of Easby. It was a poor house, suffering heavy losses in the C14 Scottish Wars, the canons still being exempted from taxes in 1496 'on account of their notorious poverty'. After Dissolution in 1540 it was granted to Robert Strelley and the domestic buildings converted to a house, which by the C19 had labourers' cottages. c.1900 the north transept was demolished to provide stone for paving the stable yard at Rokeby Hall.

D.O.E. Guidebook by R. Graham and P.K. Baillie Reynolds, H.M.S.O. 1958.

Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Listing NGR: NZ0624715099

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

111679

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Graham, R, Baillie, P K, Egglestone Abbey Guide Book, (1958)

End of official list entry

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