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Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway

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Drever
Drever
First Reviewer
4 out of 5
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1
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4
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Bolton Abbey

  • June 18, 2009
  • Rated 4 of 5 by Drever from Ayr
Bolton Abbey

On our way to Skipton we drove up a short side road to Bolton Abbey. I didn’t expect to see much except roofless walls but this Abbey still had part of the buildings intact and serving as a local church. The rest of the buildings had had the lead stripped off their roofs during the Reformation and nature took its course followed by quarrying of the stone for local buildings.

In 1154 a small group of monks of black-robed Augustinian canons and their Prior came across the hills to form the abbey. They were popular with the locals. Ordained priests they lived together like monks but aided and helped the locals. While their first duty was prayer and warship, they also preached, taught, ran hospitals, sheltered travellers and allowed local people to share their church.

Although based on religion the abbeys were at the forefront of technology in their day. They were the seat of learning and helped to push new methods of production and thinking. Here the monks ran a business empire. Their income came from produce, tithes, rents and dues from farms, mills, lead mines and other enterprises. With these they paid travelling masons to build their living quarters and a great church, the architectural beauty of which compares well against any in the country.

Work often halted because of marauding Scots severe winters and illness. Just before the Desolation work was still in progress on the west tower of the church so it never reached its full height. On entering the church we passed through it - now transformed into an antechamber filled with light and colour. In 1984 the modern laminate pine roof with its central boss in the shape of the Yorkshire rose converted the incomplete tower into its present shape. The church ceiling draws attention. Though restored it is the one installed by the canons. The golden angels and bosses are especially fine - the worn stone alter dating back to pre-Reformation days.

On display is a model of the abbey. Boys of the Ermysted Grammar School in Skipton crafted it in 1954. It gives a good idea of how the buildings would have looked.

It is ironic that because Henry VIII had a dispute with the Church in Rome that didn’t approve of divorce the people who suffered the most were the abbeys that had nothing to do with the matter. Left unfettered though they would probably eventually have received as gifts much of the land in the country in return for prayers for the deceased. The amassed wealth was simply too much for the king to resist. Show corruption in the abbeys, or perhaps invent it if absent, and they became an easy target. Destroying the buildings also however removed a valuable part of the country’s heritage.

However a more pleasant spot for a family walk and picnic would be hard to find. A ruined abbey to admire and for the kids to play in, a shallow river, the River Wharfe, to sit by and the kids to splash in, and a woodland walk for them to build up an appetite in, ready for a picnic! With 30,000 acres of beautiful countryside, over 80 miles of footpaths and ample space to run around and enjoy the fresh air, there is something here for all ages.

Descriptive leaflets and guidebook showing various paths are available from the Estate gift shops. Electric wheelchairs are available giving access to the Priory ruins, riverside, Cavendish Pavilion and the Cumberland and Green trails in Strid Wood

From journal Three days in Harrogate

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