10416 Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire by Graham Fox
Via Flickr:
883 Years of Yorkshire Pride Rievaulx Abbey was founded in 1132, in a well sheltered wooded dale, by the River Rye by twelve monks from Clairvaux Abbey as a mission for the colonisation of the north of England and Scotland. It was the first Cistercian abbey in the north of England and, with time, became one of the great Cistercian abbeys of Yorkshire, second only to Fountains Abbey in fame. Its remote location was ideal for the Cistercians, whose desire was to follow a strict life of prayer and self-sufficiency with little contact with the outside world. Their patron, Walter Espec, created another Cistercian community by founding Wardon Abbey in Bedfordshire on unprofitable wasteland on one of his inherited estates. Rievaulx Abbey became one of the greatest and wealthiest in England with 140 monks and many more lay brothers. It received grants of land totalling 6,000 acres (24 km²) and established daughter houses in England and Scotland. The abbey was dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1538. At that time there were reported to be 72 buildings occupied by an abbot and 21 monks, attended by 102 servants, with an income of £351 a year. The abbey also owned a prototype blast furnace at Laskill which produced cast iron as efficiently as a modern blast furnace.