Home
Introduction
Services
and Events
Information
for Visitors
Who's who
and Rotas
News and Notices
Organisations
Publications
Photo Gallery
Links
Contact us

 

Information for Visitors


A Guide to St Mary, Rievaulx

This guide, which is also available as a 1Mb .pdf file, helps you explore the Church, and lesser-known parts of its historical and physical context.

Detail from stained-glass window

Over 800 years ago the nave of this Church formed the “Gate Chapel” of Rievaulx Abbey. During the Dissolution in 1538 the Abbey was surrendered and sleighted along with the Chapel which then stood derelict 368 years. In 1906/7 it was restored and extended as a working church and remains so as part of the Parish of Helmsley.

Much of the west gable with its door and tiny windows are from the 13C building, as are the lower parts of the nave walls and the small windows of the south wall. The large window in the north wall is early Tudor. The east wall and altar of the early church were near the present chancel step; the old grey masonry is distinguishable from the 19C buff stone.

Outside, about 12 feet up the north-west corner buttress and facing the tower, there is an ancient stone marked “RIEVALLENS”, probably part of the inscription “Monastica Rievallens” from the main gateway into the Abbey.


Details from Rutland survey
North-west corner buttress marked "RIEVALLENS"

The Church stands between the outer and inner gates to the Abbey. The Outer Gate would have had a wide archway with folding doors and a small lodge over for the porter. It would have closed off the road at the top entrance to the churchyard.

The “otter (outer) gatte howse” mentioned in the above Rutland survey has survived as the two cottages, the original “cruck” structure is now inside the later masonry outer walls. The byre adjoining the lower cottage (Severadus) has numerous stones in its walls which probably came from the original outer gate structure.

There is a tiny old trough, spring-fed, almost buried in the wayside opposite the top cottages. It may have had two functions for visitors approaching the Abbey - drinking and cleaning footwear before entering the outer gate and thence via the “slipper chapel” where they put on lighter footwear and maybe said a prayer before being admitted through the Inner Gate to the Abbey proper. After a day’s travel over the moors, this first view of the Abbey must have been as stunning as it was welcome.
Spring-fed trough
Leave the Church by the lower gate to discover these items...
  

At the beginning of the 20th century the Earl of Feversham funded the rebuilding and extension of the ruined chapel to provide a Church. The work involved retrieving and incorporating buried masonry, windows and jambs and was completed in 1907 when the Archbishop of York re-consecrated the church, dedicating it to the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the Cistercian tradition.



Subsequently, as Colonel of the Yeoman Rifles KRR the Earl was killed at Flers during the Battle of the Somme. The memorial cross on the bank outside the west door was made from the timbers of a blitzed farmhouse to mark his battlefield grave and later was brought to its present location by his son, the third Earl.
Memorial cross on bank outside west door

The stained-glass east window, dedicated to the memory of Evelyn, Eleanor and Florence Duncombe




The Memorial List in the church shows nineteen local men who gave their lives in the Great War. From a tiny parish of only three dozen households (including the farms), that was a painful price; five Richardsons are remembered here.

A further memorial is the stained glass window in the south wall given by the parents of Rev. Hawdon who was killed in the same war.

There are no graves in the churchyard because of the rocky nature of the ground and the hillside springs which provided all the water for the Abbey, the Corn Mill, and, until very recently, for the village.


The splendid stained glass east window is dedicated to the memory of Evelyn, Eleanor and Florence Duncombe, the family name of the Earls of Feversham. Florence was evidently keen on tapestry work and produced a beautiful hand-stitched banner of which there is a large framed photograph on the north wall.


We hope you enjoy your visit.

Services are held here on the
first and third Sundays every month at 11 am.

ALL Visitors are most welcome
to join our small congregation.