Pictures of Rievaulx

About Rievaulx

The pretty village of Rievaulx has a wealth of stout stone cottages and a few hansome houses nestling in a curve beyond dry-stone walls beneath the wooded hills of the beautiful Rydale Valley. Here, enclosed by the magnificent heather-clad moorland and wooded Yorkshire hills is the fascinating ruin of Rievaulx Abbey. The Abbey was founded in 1131 by Cistercian Monks who came from Clairvaux, in France, one of the foremost Cistercian abbeys, ruled over by St.Bernard. It was not long before the abbey had a following of it's own. The main buildings were completed in the 12th-century and by the 13th-century it is said that the abbey housed 150 monks and over 500 lay brothers. The dissolution came in 1539 by which time there were only 22 monks and no lay brothers.

The ruinous abbey is simply overwhelming. It has an austere grandeur that epitomises early cistercian architecture. This austerity can be seen in the nave and trancepts of the great church, the earliest large cistercian church building in England. The choir, an unusually fine example of northern England architecture was completed in the year 1230 and is said to be the abbey's greatest glory. This is an awesome place, it takes on a dreamlike quality when a late afternoon sun filters through the towering arches, you swear you can hear the chanting of monks. It is all so atmospheric and enduringly beautiful. Apart from treading the hallowed ground, the best view of the great ruins is across the landscape from Rievaulx Terrace, built in the mid-18th-century by Thomas Duncombe of Duncombe Park. The National Trust now own the terrace, it has sweeping lawns and two Neoclassical temple style 'folly' buildings, it is open to the public.

Interestingly, the church of St.Mary was once the abbey's gatehouse chapel, now restored it shows work from the 13th-century. Another interesting note is the fact that Harold Wilson, Prime Minister 1964-1970 and 1974-1976 when elevated to the Peerage took the title Lord Wilson of Rievaulx in 1983.

This is favoured countryside with fields crammed with grazing sheep and cattle. This lands around here must have always had a fertile quality for in the 15th-century the monks owned 12,000 sheep all grazing in the hills and valleys surrounding the abbey. The beautiful River Rye wends it's way through Rievaulx and about a mile from the town is spanned by a graceful 18th-century bridge.

There could be no finer place from which to explore the vast wild beauty of the North Yorkshire Moors, here you can walk at leisure and drink deep of a rare peace and serenity, not often found in todays turbulent world and when you go home you will take with you a vision of a romantic ruinous abbey, shining brightly, dappled by a late evening sun.