Dale Abbey - Part 6 - St Mary's Abbey
w/e 03 July 2005
All this week's pictures were taken with a Kodak DX6490

Mill
Following the route as we have along Moor Lane, up Woodpecker Hill and through Hermit's Wood we have actually been circumnavigating the architectural feature that had a strong bearing on the name of the village. In this sixth part of the series we shall examine that feature more closely as we continue down the lane from All Saints' Church to the Abbey of St Mary.

Arch

Gate & Style

Most people visiting Dale Abbey will probably make a beeline for the remains of St Mary's Abbey and approach from the road called The Village. That means they would reach the style and gate in this picture from the left but as we have visited the Hermit's Cave first and then All Saints' Church our approach is from the opposite direction. A footpath leads from the gate across the fields to Moor Lane which we saw in Part 2. Then we concentrated our attentions on the northern side of the lane but a glance to the right would have revealed the ruined arch which stands behind the white building in the picture above.
St Mary's Abbey East Window

Those visitors with cameras walking across the fields would no doubt end up with an image of the arch similar to one or more of the above. In fact three of the four above were taken on our previous visits, only the one on the extreme left being taken this time. These are all taken from positions that would have been outside the Abbey building but for this series I wanted an image from what would have been the inside.



Returning from the footpath across the fields to the gate and style we can head in the direction of The Village and one of the first properties we encounter is Abbey House. Following the 1538 Dissolution of the Monasteries, much of the stone from St Mary's Abbey was removed and it has been incorporated into local farms and other buildings over the years but here, some of the original walls have been incorporated into the structure of Abbey House. The dwelling also contains a fireplace from the Abbey refectory.
East Window Arch

We are fortunate enough to know the owners of Abbey House and would like to record our gratitude to them for allowing us into their back garden for these pictures. This one shows the east window arch from the opposite side to the four smaller images seen above i.e. from the interior of the Abbey. We have seen already in this series how Cornelius, the Derby Baker, had a vision about 1130AD and came to Depedale, as it was then known, to make his home as a hermit in a cave in a sandstone cliff. All Saints' Church was built circa 1150 when he came down from his cave and by 1250, the magnificent Abbey had also been built.
Ruins

A Priory was originally founded on the site by Augustinian Canons from Calke Abbey around 1150 but when they moved out some 50 years later, Premonstratensian Canons took up residence. They belonged to an order founded by St Norbert at Premontre in France. The Abbey flourished until Henry VIII intervened and the use of the stone for other purposes since means that, apart from the East Widow Arch, little else remains in situ except the bases of some of the walls and pillars.
Museum

There is however, also in the garden of Abbey House, this building on the site of the Chapter House which serves as a small museum where most of what else remains has been collected and stored.
Tombs & Tiles

Inside the museum are three tombs and the walls are lined with shelves holding boxes and crates containing tiles, stones and other items of interest recovered from the site of the Abbey. When one of the tombs was opened (shades of Howard Carter and Tutankhamun) it revealed a huge oak coffin. Within the coffin, a skeleton was found to be lying on a bed of mud and privet leaves and the leaves were still green after more than 600 years. Having taken our photographs and leaving the deceased monks once more to rest in peace we left the museum and returned to the road to continue into The Village

Village Centre

Now in the heart of the village we shall resume our walk in the next part by turning left by the information board into Tattle Hill before heading off right along The Village to conclude our walk at the Carpenters Arms.

 Back To Part 5
 Forward to Part 7

Home Page
Back to Dale Abbey Index
Special Features Index

Terms & Conditions of Use
This website is copyright but licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence.
Please credit the photographer Garth Newton, or add a link to these pages.