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Updated: May 17, 2025
All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey, we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah.
Here, at a table covered with parchments, sat one of King Henry's ministers, Sir Piers de Rievaulx, son of the Bishop of Winchester, the worst living foe of Earl Hubert of Kent. He was on the younger side of middle age, and was only not quite so bad a man as the father from whom he inherited his dark gleaming eyes, lithe quick motions, intense prejudices, and profound artfulness of character.
The horse plunged and threw his rider, who, striking head-foremost against a projecting stone, was killed. Sir Walter, being childless, determined to devote his wealth to the service of God, and founded three religious houses one in Bedfordshire, another at Rievaulx, where he sought refuge from his sorrows, and the third at the place of his son's death at Kirkham.
Devar, and Medenham recovered sufficient self-control to point out to Cynthia her first glimpse of the gray walls that vie with Fountains Abbey and Rievaulx for pride of place as the most beautiful ruin in England. Certainly those old Cistercians knew how and where to build their monasteries.
Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
Aelred, the third abbot of Rievaulx, was a man of great literary qualifications, and this abbey possessed an extensive library, which was destroyed by the Scots, in one of their lawless incursions when the studious produce of the holy brotherhood, assembled by years of incessant study was committed to the reckless flames and doubtless amongst the collection were many works of the learned abbot Aelred; a character from whom we might suppose the "northern magician" had sketched the striking portraiture of the enthusiastic father Eustace, in his "Monastery."
In rare cases some of the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.
This position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called Stocking, where they remained until they came to Byland.
The park itself has not been submitted to the attentions of the landscape gardener: it is natural and unspoiled as in monkish times. Of the original Cistercian abbey, built in 1148 and peopled with monks brought from Rievaulx in Yorkshire, little remains save a groined and pillared chamber, supposed to have been the refectory, and used nowadays as a servants' hall.
The bank dropped off the edge of the moorland into a lovely and fertile valley, where, quite unexpectedly, we came upon Bylands Abbey, the rival of Rievaulx, but far more fallen into decay. It stood alone in the midst of the wide valley; no caretaker hindered our steps to its precincts and no effort had been made to prop its crumbling walls or to stay the green ruin creeping over it.
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