Byland
Abbey - Ryedale (EH)
The order of monks who founded Byland was that of Savigny, a reforming branch of
Benedictines. They first set out from the mother abbey at Furness in Cumbria and after
several wandering and fruitless journeys, and a rather unchristian dispute with the Abbot
back at Furness, they came to Byland in Ryedale. Although the land and location was
suitable, they could hear the bells of the nearby Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx and visa versa, which was not conducive to the holy life
of either community and as the more recent arrivals, the Savigny monks withdrew to the
west where on land given by Roger de Mowbray, they settled down and built a small stone
church. The Order was merged with that of the Cistercians in the same year, and the monks
at Byland had to change their grey habits for white and adopt the routines and services of
those they had escaped at Rievaulx. The monks acquired the nearby land of the present
site, which was marshy and unused and set about clearing it .
The earliest surviving building on the present site is the west range,
providing accommodation for lay brothers. The monks themselves moved here in 1177, when
most of the monastic buildings were complete, but the great church still had a very long
way to go. It was built around a temporary church, which was gradually demolished as the
work progressed, and finished in the 1190s.
The abbey was pillaged by the Scots in 1322 after the defeat of Edward
II's unprepared army at nearby Shaws Moor, but it became a very prosperous place. In 1538,
the abbey's annual income was £295, and the then abbot, John Ledes, together with
twenty-five choir monks and all the lay brothers had to give the land over to Henry VIII's
Suppression Commissioners and were pensioned off. The destruction of the abbey began
immediately; all altar plate, furnishings, timber and lead from the roofs were sold and it
inevitably fell gradually into the ruined state we see today.
When it was first built, Byland was the largest Cistercian church in
Britain and the scale of the building is still impressive. It was also innovative, as it
was one of the first buildings in the north to fully reject the Romanesque for the new
Gothic style of architecture. The masonry was of the highest quality, contrasting with the
more functional appearance of the cloister buildings. Inside it was quite colourful, with
limewashed walls decorated with red painted false masonry lines, painted vine leafs and
scale patterns and the carved capitals highlighted in red. The floor was covered in tiles,
some of which survive, as shown above. The West Front was dominated by a huge rose window,
traditional in Cistercian churches. From excavations it has been discovered that the
master mason designed the tracery of the window on the floor of the room above the warming
house, and its central pattern is also inscribed on the inside wall of the west front.
