Byland Abbey

Byland Abbey stands in a quiet corner of North Yorkshire within the North York Moors National Park. The ruins occupy a gentle rise above a small village, surrounded by rolling farmland and heather moor. It was once a powerful Cistercian monastery, founded in 1135 and rebuilt on this site from the late 12th century. The abbey’s church was unusually grand for its time, with a twelve-bay nave and a lantern tower above the crossing. Its west front still rises almost intact, topped by the lower half of a huge rose window. The monastic buildings cluster around the church, their ruined walls standing up to five metres high in places. The abbey’s history is marked by movement and dispute before it settled here. Thirteen monks left Furness Abbey in 1134 and moved five times in fourteen years before reaching New Byland in 1177. Once established, it became one of the three leading abbeys of northern England in the late 14th century. Its wealth came from sheep and wool, though it never rivalled Rievaulx in income. In 1322 King Edward II fled from the Scots after being caught unawares at the Battle of Old Byland. By the Dissolution in 1538 only twenty-five monks remained. Visitors today walk among the remains of the church and cloister. The west front of the church dominates the view, its rose window a striking feature. Parts of the nave and south transept still stand to full height, while the monastic buildings show sections of wall and foundations. The site is open to the elements, with grass and wildflowers growing among the stones. The quiet fields around the abbey stretch to the moorland horizon, offering a sense of the isolation the monks once knew.