Ruins Of Egglestone Abbey

Ruins of Egglestone Abbey

This is a Premonstratensian abbey founded between 1195 and 1198 by the de Multon family as a daughter house of Easby. The church and cloister were first built between 1195 and 1225, with the presbytery rebuilt around 1250. Major works followed from 1275 to 1300, when the nave was widened to the south, the south transept was rebuilt, and the west range was constructed. In the mid-16th century, the cloister ranges were converted into a house.

The church is constructed of squared stone and rubble with a cruciform plan. It is aisleless except for eastern chapels to the transepts. The church displays Transitional, Early English, and Decorated architectural styles.

The nave features a chamfered plinth, pilaster buttresses on the north and west, and a moulded cornice on corbels below a 15th-century heightening. At the west end is a blocked doorway with a late 13th-century two-light window, which replaced a pair of earlier lancets. The north wall has a round-arched chamfered doorway, moulded corbels, and a string-course marking the position of the cloister roof, along with two lancets. The four-bay south wall has a sill string and stepped buttresses. Windows consist of three lancet lights under one arch with pierced spandrels, multi-hollow-chamfered surrounds, and hoodmoulds. A moulded doorway appears in the west bay.

Only the west wall of the south transept survives. It has a moulded plinth and angle buttresses with gabled crocketed heads at the south-west corner. Two late 13th-century two-light windows and a 15th-century stair turret are visible in this wall.

The chancel has a chamfered plinth and stepped buttresses, with the eastern ones moulded. Two two-light windows appear on the south, and two- and three-light windows on the north. Lancet lights sit under pointed arches with jamb shafts topped by nail-head capitals. The five-light east window has a similar surround but with straight moulded mullions. The south and east windows display richer mouldings.

In the interior, the south-west corner of the crossing shows shafted responds to the crossing arches, set on corbels. Piscinae and aumbries are present in the south and east walls of the chancel. Monuments include a table tomb with arcaded sides to Sir Ralph Bowes (died 1482), an inscribed slab to T. Rokeby, Bastarde with a relief cross fleury and crozier, and brass indents.

The east range of the cloister rises three storeys and is largely of mid-16th-century date, with two-, three-, and four-light mullioned windows. Ground-floor windows feature heraldic or head hoodmould stops. A first-floor fireplace with a flat-pointed head dates to the 16th century. At the north end lies a 13th-century groin-vaulted rere-dorter undercroft with a segmental-arched fireplace. The north range shows remains of a warming-house fireplace and a large 16th-century stepped stack to the north. Other domestic buildings are reduced to footings and lower courses, except for a length of wall with two doorways on the south side of the cloisters.

The original layout included a cruciform church with a cloister on the north side extending west from the church. The east range contained the chapterhouse, with the dorter on the first floor and rere-dorter above. The north range housed the frater over an undercroft with a warming house. The west range contained a kitchen (possibly post-Dissolution) and perhaps a guest house.

Historically, the abbey was a poor house, suffering heavy losses during the 14th-century Scottish Wars. The canons remained exempted from taxes in 1496 on account of their notorious poverty. Following the Dissolution in 1540, the abbey was granted to Robert Strelley, and the domestic buildings were converted into a house. By the 19th century, these had become labourers' cottages. Around 1900, the north transept was demolished to provide stone for paving the stable yard at Rokeby Hall.

The site is a scheduled ancient monument.