Two Yorkshire Abbeys

This post combines two abbeys we visited during our Yorkshire Dales travels in September. One became famous as the inspiration for a well-known Gothic novel, popular this time of year. The other is the largest monastic ruin in the UK. And, I learned that every abbey is a monastery, but not every monastery is an abbey. 

A monastery is where a community of monks or nuns lives apart from the world and follow bound rules focusing on prayer, study and spiritual devotion. 

An abbey is a larger autonomous religious community ruled by an elected abbot (for monks) or a convent ruled by an abbess (for nuns) as well as the church or buildings where the community lives and worships. An abbey is a specific, self-governing rank of a monastery.

Both of the places we visited were classified as abbeys.

High on a cliff overlooking the historic seaside town in North Yorkshire, England, stands the ruins of Whitby Abbey overlooking the North Sea. These ruins are among the most celebrated sights of North Yorkshire. 

There are a couple of ways to visit the abbey, one way is to climb the 199 steps. We didn't count them and neither did we walk up, but reached the top by traveling on a hop-on, hop-off local tour bus.

The monastery was founded in AD 657 by King Oswiu of Northumbria who then appointed Lady Hilda, a prominent leader in early English Christianity, as abbess. It was a double monastery with both monks and nuns and was known as Streoneshalh, the older name for Whitby.

In 664, it was the setting for the Synod of Whitby, a landmark council in the history of the Church in England. Clerics from different strands of English Christianity, Celtic and Roman, met to debate key points of their shared religion. This included how the date of Easter should be calculated. The Romans prevailed, over time the Pope’s authority over the British Church became the dominant faith. 

The Streoneshalh monastery was destroyed during successive Viking raids in the 9th century (867 to 870) and it remained abandoned for over 200 years. Around 1078, Reinfrid, a soldier of William the Conqueror, who became a Benedictine monk, travelled to Streoneshalh to re-establish a monastic community. After receiving a grant of land that included the ruins, he founded a new monastery in the 1220s, rebuilt on a larger scale and followed the Benedictine rule.

The Benedictine abbey thrived for centuries as a center of learning. However, its possessions were confiscated and it was destroyed under Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536 and 1541. Afterwards, the ruins were used as a landmark by sailors. 

In the 1540s, Sir Richard Cholmley took out a 21-year lease on Whitby Abbey from King Henry VIII and later bought the abbey estate and its remaining properties in 1555 (with final property purchases continuing through 1563). The family converted part of the abbot's lodgings into a home known as Whitby Abbey House. The abbey remained in the Cholmley family and their descendants, the Strickland family.

In the 18th century the Cholmleys abandoned the Abbey which fell into ruin again. Parts of the structure collapsed; the nave fell in 1762 and the central tower in 1830.

In December 1914 during WW I, the abbey ruins were bombed by German warships whose crew was aiming for a Coastguard Station on the end of the headland. During a 10-minute attack, the buildings sustained heavy damage.

In 1920, the Strickland family passed the abbey to the Ministry of Works. The ruins are now owned and operated by English Heritage, a registered charity that manages the National Heritage Collection of more than 400 historic sites, monuments and buildings across England.

Bram Stoker 1906

As for the novel connection. The dramatic cliffside ruins are said to have inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic novel, Dracula. Stoker stayed in Whitby and used the abbey ruins, churchyard tombstones and local folklore to create his masterpiece. However, in the book, Count Dracula never enters the abbey ruins, no surprise there.

Like many UK ruins, the abbey is rumored to be haunted. And, the most famous ghost is said to be the spirit of St Hilda, the first abbess. In Dracula, her ghost is mentioned alongside the ghost of a nun who was stoned to death after breaking her vow of chastity.

Thankfully, we didn't see any ghosts during our brief visit, but we did get a good selfie of ourselves and Whitby Abbey.

Now to the second abbey we visited which were are the largest monastic ruins in the UK — the ruins of Fountains Abbey located in the Skell valley near Ripon, North Yorkshire. Founded in the 12th century, the abbey became a thriving center of Cistercian religious activity. 

A model showing the size of the original Fountains Abbey

Today, its large ruins provide a backdrop of the power and wealth of medieval monastic communities in England, before they were dissolved and destroyed by Henry VIII. 

The abbey was founded in  1132 by 13 Benedictine monks who had left St Mary’s Abbey in York seeking seclusion and a more austere spiritual life. The Archbishop of York gave them a site deep in the Skell valley to found their new abbey. It was remote, but had access to natural resources, including water, wood, stone and earth. It was named after the natural springs and fountains in the Skell Valley where the monastery was built. Within three years of its founding, the community joined the French Cistercian Order. (The Cistercians are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines in the late 11th century.)

Fountains Abbey became the largest and richest abbey in the north of England. The choir monks lived in the abbey and followed the rule of St Benedict adopting a life of simplicity, solitude and austerity. Lay brothers, who lived in the abbey and were not monks provided labor to ensure that it ran smoothly as the monks spent time in prayer. It was due to the work of these lay brothers that Fountains Abbey grew into one of the richest monasteries in northern England through wool production, lead mining, cattle rearing, horse breeding and stone quarrying.

Fountains Abbey deteriorated during the 14th century as a result of economic hardship and the Black Death. After restoration work in the 15th century, the abbey was once again flourishing. However, success was short-lived. In 1539, as just like with Whitby Abbey and hundreds of other monastic houses in England, the abbey was closed as part of the English Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Over four centuries of monastic life ended. In 1540, the Crown sold the estate to Sir Richard Gresham, who stripped the buildings of valuable materials and sold a large amount of the stone, timber and lead found on the site, taking apart the monastery to do so. Stone was scavenged for construction and a local quarry.

The abbey ruins remained neglected until the 18th century, when the site was acquired and integrated into the Studley Royal Park, a landscaped garden created by British politician John Aislabie that was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. 

Even in its current state, Fountains Abbey has been described by Historic England (a public body that advises the government and manages heritage designations) as the best preserved of English abbeys and the finest picturesque ruin. The majority of the buildings were constructed in the Romanesque and early English Gothic style between 1170 and 1247 with major additions in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. 

Fountains Abbey is protected for its historic significance. It's been designated a Grade I listed building (a structure in the UK officially recognized as being of exceptional architectural or historical interest) and a Scheduled Monument by Historic England. (A scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building in the UK that receives legal protection against unauthorized change, damage, or destruction.) The abbey is owned by the National Trust and maintained by English Heritage and is open to the public. Visitors can explore the extremely well-preserved remains. Its vast scale, ornate stonework and towering archways gave us some idea of how important the monastic community was in medieval England.

Some members of the NH PBS tour group at Fountains Abbey

We not only had wonderful traveling companions, but also the best weather considering that we were in the UK. Thanks to all who have commented on my previous travel posts. There's a few more left before ending this travel adventure. Our fall travel season has been exciting. We're thankful to be able to travel health and money-wise and to share online. FYI, we've been telling fellow travelers we're on the SKI program, spending kids inheritance — why not?