Three Weeks in England

The next morning after our final breakfast at the B&B, we got our suitcases downstairs and said a fond farewell to Ryan and Andy, who had been superior hosts.

We had one more place to visit before leaving Yorkshire and that was the Kirkham Priory, set in the Derwent Valley near the Yorkshire Wolds. The 900-year-old monastic community was home to Augustinian canon officials. The abbey was founded by Walter Espec around 1122, and the first prior was his uncle, William. The Kirkham community soon prospered and set about building a stone monastery.

The Rule of St. Augustine governed every aspect of life within the canons’ monasteries. They wore black robes, took the time to read every day in the cloister, ate mostly vegetarian communal meals, sang every day together in the priory’s church, and slept in a common dormitory. Because they were all ordained priests, Augustinian canons frequently had spiritual roles in wider society, serving as chaplains and parish priests.

In 1132, Espec also founded Rievaulx Abbey, just twenty miles away, for monks of the Cistercian Order. This created a clash between the orders between 1135 and 1140, and Espec seemed to be the instigator. An agreement was made and those who wanted to join the Cistercians could leave, yet the abbey remained an Augustinian monastery, and relations with Rievaulx were literarily settled, as books in their library were found to be written by learned men from Rievaulx. Benefactors from the knightly class and rich peasants, supported the priory with money and grants through the Middle Ages. Within the priory’s twenty-five acres of lands grazed sheep, and it had a fishery, mill and woodland.

When Espec died, his estates passed to the de Roos family, who rebuilt the church and gatehouse, and added a lot of allegorical art upon its walls. In 1280, the canons were criticized for their behavior. They were accused of having entertainments with jesters and fools in the refectory, for leaving the monastery at night to visit friends and relations, and leaving for longer periods of time without permission, for drinking, and for other “indecent pleasures.” One monk ran away, forged charters, and traveled extravagantly. He was eventually caught and ended up in prison at Kirkham.

Troubles continued for the priory with the war between England and Scotland. Scottish armies sacked the monastery, plunged it into debt, and many canons left. Kirkham’s finances gradually improved with extensive building works at the monastery. The priory continued to enjoy the esteem of the local community, and the canons received numerous generous bequests.

Local people began to use the nave of Kirkham’s church as their parish church, separated from the canons by a screen, which had two doors that the canons could lock. The parish church looked after its parishioners from cradle to grave. It had is own bell tower and a font used for baptisms. It accommodated a free school, marriages were celebrated at its altars, and people were buried within its boundaries. In the mid-1400s, the canons moved parish worship to a specially-built chapel closer to the front gate, partly for convenience, but also to prevent the lay people from disturbing the canons, and it protected them from the plague when it ravaged the countryside.

When the dissolution occurred, the canons surrendered in 1539, and the monastery was stripped of all its valuables. Then the crown sold the property to Henry Knevett, who used the stone to construct his manor house, which left the abbey in ruins. Sir William St. John Hope, an authority on medieval monasticism, excavated the site in the 19th century, and found that the cloister had been used as a tennis court, a popular sport even during Henry VIII time. After the First World War, the abbey was transferred to the Office of Works, the ruins were stabilized, and the priory became a tourist attraction. During the Second World War, Kirkham was used by the military for testing equipment in preparation for the D-Day landings in 1944. Prominent visitors to the top-secret base included Winston Churchill and members of the royal family. The priory is now cared for by English Heritage.

We arrived at the abbey a short time after it opened on an overcast day. Our booties went on in order to tromp through the grass which covered the site. The entry gate had a handsome wide opening with two windows above. We entered the small one-room greeting and museum building just inside and spoke briefly with the woman at the English Heritage desk. Only a few things were left to see in the tiny museum. One stone head was notable. With a map before us, she laid out a brief description of what we would see.

The ruins are spread out over a descending embankment, but compared to the artist’s rendering of how the abbey once looked, there didn’t appear to be much left. Wide areas of grass were sparcely scattered with remaining stone ruins. Long stretches of walls remained where one could see where the arches along the cloister once met. Doorways opened up to far stretches of sheep meadow. Stairways began going up and then ended shortly in a destroyed tower. Stairs went down to where an old waterway once surged. Broken walls ran low, indicating where rooms once stood. Stalwart stones stood tall at the furthest corner. A bench had been placed along one depression facing the river. With the river Derwent nearby, rushing under a triple arched stone bridge and then dropping as a short waterfall, we could see why the canons chose this lovely spot. What remained still left an impressive display.

With the completion of our Yorkshire visit, we stopped for gas and pulled into York where we had pizza for lunch and then returned the car to Enterprise. They took us to the nearby station where we waited for our 2:08 train back to London.