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Byland Abbey: History
Byland Abbey: Buildings
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Final destination They removed there from Stocking on the eve of
All Saints in the year of Our Lord’s Incarnation in 1177, and
where, God willing, they shall prosperously remain forever.
In October 1177, after some thirty years at
Stocking, the monks moved for the final time and settled at the
present site of New Byland, some three miles east of Stocking.
The community upheld the Cistercians’ reputation for the
transformation of the landscape, and prepared the site here for
monastic occupation. First, marshland was drained, wooded areas
cleared and boundaries erected. Thereafter building work was begun.(23) The
western range was started c. 1155/60, and the claustral buildings
were constructed thereafter. The choir of the church was completed
in the 1170s, but the church was not completely finished until
the 1190s, in other words, after the community had moved here.(24) The
church at Byland was to be the largest and most elaborate in twelfth-century
Cistercian Europe. Therefore, the monks would have arrived to inhabit a well-developed and appointed site at New Byland, ready for the celebration of monastic life. As much of the building work had been completed, the community would have suffered minimal disruption from the noise and debris of construction. |
