From the 11th to 12th century, many abbeys and priories were built in Yorkshire and Norman landowners increased their revenues. As a result, new towns at the time including Barnsley, Doncaster, Hull, Leeds, Scarborough and Sheffield were established.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 began under Henry VIII and resulted in the uprising known as Pilgrimage of Grace which started in Yorkshire as a protest. Religious architecture includes current surviving cathedrals as well as the ruins of monasteries and abbeys.
We have compiled a list of some of the oldest surviving abbeys in Yorkshire and their history.
We have compiled a list of some of the oldest surviving abbeys in Yorkshire and their history.
5. Kirkstall Abbey
Kirkstall Abbey was founded in 1152 by Henry de Lacy, baron of Pontefract, who was one of the top landowners in the north. It gained its wealth by keeping sheep during the wool trade and the abbey was disestablished 388 years after it was built. Photo: James Hardisty
The church has its historical origins in an Augustinian priory founded at Embsay, five miles to the west of the village, then known as Bolton in 1120. The canons lived and worshipped there until 1539 when the abbey was disestablished. Photo: James Hardisty
This abbey was a Cistercian in Rievaulx near Helmsley, in the North York Moors National Park and was one of the great abbeys in England until its dissolution in 1538 under Henry VIII. It was the first Cistercian monastery in the north of England, established in 1132 by 12 monks from Clairvaux Abbey. The site was awarded Scheduled Ancient Monument status in 1915 and the abbey was brought into the care of the then Ministry of Works in 1917. Photo: James Hardisty
Whitby Abbey was founded in 657 AD by the Anglo-Saxon era King of Northumbria, who appointed Lady Hilda, abbess of Hartlepool Abbey as founding abbess. It later became a Benedictine abbey and was disestablished during the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536 and 1545. Photo: James Hardisty
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