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Growth and consolidation (1152-1182)
(1/2)
During Alexander’s
thirty-five year abbacy (1147-82) the foundations for monastic life
at Kirkstall were firmly established. Having successfully organised
the community’s relocation from Barnoldswick, Alexander completed
the major building work at Kirkstall, brought the land there into
cultivation, and began the process of establishing granges.(1)
He attracted recruits and benefactors (many from neighbouring places
such as York, Leeds, Bracewell and Otley), thereby extending the
abbey’s acquisitions. By the end of Alexander’s abbacy
Kirkstall had established holdings in all the areas where it would
later develop its great estates.(2)
Building work
The lion’s share of the building work at Kirkstall was completed
before the end of the twelfth century, and the chief buildings
were
finished during Alexander’s abbacy (1147-82). The Foundation
History of the house explains that the church, monks’
dormitory and refectory, lay-brothers’ dormitory and refectory,
chapter-house, cloister and other necessary offices within the
abbey
were all built in wood and stone, and covered with fine tiles made
of fired clay and stone slabs known as ‘thackstones’;
remains of both types of roofing material have been found. In
the
fifteenth century the roofs were recovered with lead sheets.(3)
The community quarried Bramley Fall stone, a hard, coarse-grained
granite, which was resistant to bad weather. It was transported
from quarries across the river. Remains of the wooden jetty where
the stone was landed have been recovered, as well as several slabs
that must have been dropped during transportation.(4)
As Alexander endeavoured to conserve the abbey’s woods, timber
was sought elsewhere.(5) The monks
and
lay-brothers worked
together to erect the buildings, and Henry de Lacy himself laid
some of the foundation stones in the church, financing the remainder
of the work. Skilled stonemasons were brought in to complete the
carving.(6) Excavation of the site
in the 1950s recovered traces of a twelfth-century forge which
may
have been used in the construction of the abbey.(7)
The building-work was not only laborious and time-consuming, but
expensive, and in 1186 Kirkstall was amongst the eight Yorkshire
houses that owed Aaron, the Jew of Lincoln, the combined sum of
6400 marks.
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