Rievaulx Abbey is one of the most evocative places in the county, sitting in the tranquil valley of the River Rye within the North York Moors. It equally holds the title of one of the most architecturally significant monastic ruins in England. Founded in 1132 by a pioneering group of monks from Clairvaux in France upon land given by the lord of nearby Helmsley, Walter Espec, the abbey became the first Cistercian monastery in the north. Its establishment marked a key moment in the spread of the austere order, which sought spiritual renewal through poverty, manual labour, and isolation.
The architecture of Rievaulx reflects this evolution. The early buildings, in keeping with the Cistercian ethos, were stark and functional. Yet by the late twelfth century, as the abbey grew wealthy through sheep farming, ironworking, and landholdings, a more elaborate aesthetic emerged. The surviving ruins of the great church—begun around 1147 and significantly expanded under Abbot Aelred—blend Romanesque solidity with early Gothic skeletal elegance.
Aelred, who led Rievaulx from 1147 to 1167 (friend to the later martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, and a prolific writer) shaped Rievaulx into a spiritual powerhouse and a model for Cistercian life. Yet under his leadership, the abbey also grew in worldly influence, and the grandeur of the buildings and monastic living became increasingly distant from the order’s founding simplicity.
The abbey suffered during the later medieval period, hit by financial pressures, declining vocations, and the changing spiritual climate. Its final blow came at the Dissolution under Henry VIII in 1538, when Rievaulx was suppressed, its lands seized, and its valuables stripped. A century later, it appealed as a romantic ruin to Sir Charles Duncombe (d.1711), a London banker who purchased the former monastic complex. He subsequently erected a new house down the valley, Duncombe Park, and designed a terrace of Classical temples overlooking the crumbling abbey.
By the early 20th century, however, the ruins were in disrepair, leading the Office of Works to acquire them into its guardianship in July 1917. Today, Rievaulx Abbey is open to the public via English Heritage (#ad).
Address: Rievaulx Abbey, Rievaulx Bank, Rievaulx, Helmsley, York YO62 5LB, United Kingdom
Books by Dr Emma Wells
