Egglestone Abbey - Barnard Castle, Northumberland (EH)
Located 2 miles down the River Tees from Barnard Castle, Egglestone Abbey was founded in 1195 for the Premonstratensian, or 'white', canons. The abbey of St. Mary and St. John the Evangelist suffered from its position as there were many raids by the Scots. It was also very poor and at times had difficulty maintaining the required minimum number of canons, twelve, from the twelve Apostles.
In the mid-thirteenth century an enquiry was held to see whether the abbey's status should be reduced to that of a priory, but it managed to keep the higher status. Over the years, measures such as exemption from tax, pensions from serving at surrounding churches and even, in 1398, the granting by Pope Boniface VIII of an indulgence for visiting the abbey on the principal religious feast days, were all tried to help the abbey's parlous financial state. Various documents survive relating to life at the abbey, from the court proceedings brought against the abbey in 1248 by Philip de Leya in relation to his father's charter for the support of new canons, to compensation by Sir Thomas Rokeby in 1348 for damage inflicted by the army before the battle of Neville's Cross. Egglestone was not without its scandal as well - various investigations by visiting abbots from other abbeys occurred and a canon was banished to Torre Abbey in Devon for plotting against the abbot in 1285.
Egglestone Abbey High Altar
After the Reformation, the land was granted to Robert Strelly in 1548 and he converted some of the buildings into a private residence of some status. His building work was not as successful as the original builders however, and only by the end of the sixteenth century, repairs were needed. Eventually, much of the abbey was pulled down and some of the stonework was re-used to pave the stable yard at the nearby Rokeby Hall in the mid-nineteenth century.
Egglestone Abbey East Range
The site of Egglestone was chosen because of its isolation, the nearby river and the supply of local stone for construction. The church was built first, but was extended and widened from the mid-thirteenth century. Although not much now remains, the scale of the completed church is impressive, with some fine and unusual carved mouldings around the pointed lancet windows still visible. There are some gravestones within the lay end of the nave, i.e. before the rood screen which would have separated lay worshipers from canons. There is a table tomb of Sir Rafe Bowes and a grave stone of Thomas Rokeby. Beside the high altar at the east end, there are two sets of stone cupboards, or aumbries, where communion vessels were stored, as well as two piscinas, for washing the vessels etc. Above the altar there is a fine five lighted arched window. Unusually for monastic buildings, the cloister, Chapter House, refectory and other buildings are ranged to the north west of the church, rather than the south east. It is the original east wing of the monastic buildings, where the canons slept, that became the new domestic buildings.