Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx Abbey, near Helmsley in North Yorkshire, England, was the first Cistercian monastery founded in the north of England, established in 1132 by Walter l'Espec and Thurstan, Archbishop of York, and settled by twelve monks sent from Clairvaux Abbey in France. Under Abbot Aelred the community grew to roughly 140 monks and 500 lay brothers, and the abbey prospered through the wool trade, sheep farming, and lead and iron mining, even operating a prototype blast furnace at Laskill for casting iron. Henry VIII's commissioners dissolved the abbey in 1538, leaving it with 72 buildings, an abbot, 21 monks, and 102 lay employees at the time of suppression. Rievaulx was designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1915 and brought into state care in 1917, and its ruins are now maintained by English Heritage within the North York Moors National Park, overlooked by the eighteenth-century Rievaulx Terrace and its temples, owned by the National Trust.