WARNING: this post is ridiculously long, with a lot of information.
After a site visit full of historical inaccuracies (see Wednesday’s post), we were all really looking forward to speaking with Keith Emerich, Inspector of Ancient Monuments for English Heritage. We met with him at Rievaulx Abbey, an absolutely beautiful setting, and a Cistercian monastery until the English Reformation. (Yes, that would be the same Reformation mentioned as the downfall of Easby Abbey; the dissolution of monasteries is a recurrent theme up here.)
Keith Emerick at Rievaulx Abbey
There are different ways to mark a historical site, and in marking them you rate their importance. So a structure can be a Scheduled Ancient Monument and/or a listed building. Scheduled Monuments, which can be distinguished as ruins or remains or archeological sites that cannot be lived in, take precedence over listed buildings. Listed buildings have three grades: 1, 2*, and 2, with 1 being the most significant. Certain sites can be both listed and scheduled. Rievaulx Abbey is one of these (and actually several of the places we will visit are both).
As we attempted to clarify a few questions raised on Wednesday in regards to renovations to listed buildings (most of the buildings comprising the Inner Bailey in Richmond are listed), I learned this:
Repairs/Renovations/Demolition: First, the owner of a grade 2 listed building (the lowest of the three) can make most repairs without needing consent from outside agencies, but with larger renovations (or demolition), the owner must apply through the local council. If the building is a grade 2* or grade 1, English Heritage is sent a copy of the application and called upon in an advisory capacity. Normally other societies in the community, such as the Society from the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), are also asked to weigh in before a decision is reached. English Heritage does not normally try to stop the owner unless they feel really strongly about the proposal. Because of the possible interference by the government, most owners prefer not to have their property designated as either listed or scheduled.
Guardianship Monuments: However, when it comes to the latter (Scheduled Ancient Monuments), the owner has little choice. Actually, most of the ruins in England are sitting on land owned by someone (Lord such-and-such). When the original Ancient Monuments Act was introduced in 1882, the government designated Guardianship Monuments (although at the time these were only prehistoric sites), which allowed them to control everything within a certain area surrounding and including the site. I believe the Act eventually passed in 1913, and so control of the ground where these Guardianship Monuments sit was given to the government (or in actuality, English Heritage and/or the National Trust). Today there are 410, considered the “cream of the crop” of sites in England.
Conservation Area: Richmond is also a Conservation Area, and the changes listed above always go through the local council. English Heritage asks each council to do an appraisal of the area, stating the significance, the pressures on the area, and finally policies to alleviate the aforementioned pressures.
Each new monument that becomes a Scheduled Ancient Monument or Listed Building receives a Designation Description (I will try to scan in a sample at a later date). This includes a map of the site (and if it is a Guardianship Monument it includes the perimeter that marks the area controlled by the government), a description of the monument, and an assessment of its importance. These Designation Descriptions are actually public record, and can be accessed through the local District Council Records Office, or through English Heritage.
So, back to Rievaulx Abbey. Most of the surrounding village is also part of the Scheduled Ancient Monument as the original structures were part of the Abbey; therefore, the Guardianship perimeter surrounds the village and continues for a ways out to some of the fence lines.
Rievaulx Abbey is unique in that the owner actually wanted it to be taken over by the government. But although the government took possession of the monument in 1917, they were unable to begin any restorative work due to WWI—there was no wood for scaffolding. In the period immediately following WWI, many returning veterans were put to work “conserving” monuments like Rievaulx. Unfortunately, at the time those in charge sought to restore these places to their “high point”, which for most abbeys was the 14th century. This was, in part, due to backlash from the 19th century restorations previously undertaken throughout churches and abbeys (remember Sir Gilbert Scott and the parish church at Easby?). However, in this case many later surrounding buildings were completely demolished, erasing that part of a monument’s history.
Another aspect of this Preserver’s Fund involved completely removing aspects of the monument they wished to preserve, and then fortifying the interiors of columns and walls with cement and steel. They then placed the outer stonework in exactly the same place, even leaving original cracks, in order to maintain “authenticity”, and at the same time help the monument survive. Unfortunately, within a single generation the issues resulting from this technique began to show. One example would be the Scotttish Point mortar used in some of the walls. In their attempt to fortify the reconstructed wall, the builders actually made the mortar harder than the brick; moisture, which escapes through the weakest point in the wall, now leaves through the stones instead of the mortar, causing cracks to form quite quickly. What is perhaps most surprising is that the general public are unaware of these restorations, and they are never included in the interpretation of sites.
As I mentioned earlier, Rievaulx Abbey was (and is in many respects) part of a large estate. You can see below where they used the wall as a shooting gallery. Indeed, when ruins began to become “romanticized” during the 17th century and thus extremely popular, the owners and their visitors began to treat them as their private playgrounds. While this may seem shocking and even distasteful to some now, this repurposing actually aided in the survival of many of these monuments.
Here is how the cloister walls would have appeared. A sign attached at the top right makes note of the fact that this is merely a reconstruction.
Although I haven't posted pictures of them (but you may be able to see some in the background of the photo above), the majority of the smaller walls seen today were actually completely covered in earth as late as the 1920’s. The bits that were slowly uncovered tell a bit of a story about the English Reformation’s impact on Rievaulx. Many of the columns were knocked down and the entire roof brought down. The stained glass would have been smashed, and the surrounding lead was melt down into what is called a lead pig. “Archaeologists” (in reality war veterans) uncovered three of these lead pigs, which were trapped along with several men when the roof was brought down. You can google "lead pig" if you are interested in seeing one, I'm afraid I didn't get a picture of the one in the Rievaulx exhibition room.
After leaving Rievaulx Abbey, we drove up a steep embankment to Rievaulx Terrace, a National Trust site. It was built during the 18th century solely to provide views of the ruins below. Honored guests of the Lord would have ridden along three miles of this:
Walking the terrace.
While looking at this:
Views of Rievaulx Abbey from above.
They would have ended their journey here, at the Ionic Temple:
Here are Rebecca and I on the steps of the Ionic Temple.
They would have dined inside:
Jeez, sorry for the awful photos. I'm not sure what I was trying to do here. Some of the furniture and décor is original to the Temple, while other pieces belonged to the family and were later donated.
After leaving Rievaulx we visited two more sites: the Starfish Site, and Mount Grace Priory.
The Starfish Site was originally used during WWII as a decoy bombing site. It is also a Scheduled Monument, although as you can see it is privately owned, with sheep grazing all around. We witnessed a bit of a drama when a pair of lambs became distressed by our intrusion and started baaing, which spurred another group of sheep to run towards them. However, the adult sheep were on our side of the wall, with the lambs on the other. I believe this unforeseen separation led to a bit of confusion for both the babies and adults, and the resultant nonstop baaing was totally ridiculous.
Silly parent sheep. They are preparing to charge past us to get near the lambs on the other side of the stone wall.
*****
Our last stop was Mount Grace Priory, the site of the first Carthusian monastery in Northern England. Carthusians were the most extreme of the Benedictine monks, and actually lived in seculsian in individual cells. See below:
Here is the doorway to an individual cell. Notice the passage for food on the right.
Here is a view from the interior of the cell, looking at the food passageway.
The interior of each cell would have been two stories, with living quarters downstairs and a workspace upstairs. Each cell would have had its own toilet and garden. Remember, these monks would have spent their entire lives in solitude and silence, not even speaking to or seeing the person who brought them food. It was a very difficult life.
By this point in the day we were pretty exhausted. We spent about an hour at Mount Grace and then headed for home.
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