Bolton Abbey - Wharfedale, West Yorkshire (Pvt)
| Not an abbey, but a priory (the appellation was used by an
early railway company and has stuck), and founded by Alicia de Romilly, Bolton Abbey was
for four hundred years a thriving community of Augustinian canons. Although their number
was fairly small, the number of dependant workers, labourers servants may have sometimes
totalled about 200 people. Accounts of the produce and ale-brewing, the entertaining and
wages survive for the years 1290 to 1325. The Augustinians were relatively worldly, the
thirteenth century minstrel turned monk Guyot de Provins wrote of them that they 'mix with
the world and talk at table'.
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The extensive remains are dramatically sited beside the river Wharfe, whose water was no doubt valuable for the brewing. After the Dissolution in 1539, most of the church and the surrounding buildings were left to fall into decay, but the nave was reused as the parish church, a wall being built where the rood-screen once stood. A graveyard stands behind the present church. |
| Now a popular place for families to visit, the site extends along the river through wood-land and up to the Strid, where the rocks narrow to force the water into a rushing torrent. The land is part of the Duke of Devonshire's estates. |
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