Home»All Photographs»Cathedrals, Abbeys and Churches»Yorkshire Abbeys»St Mary's Abbey, York

Barely a stone's throw from York Minster, lies the Benedictine Abbey of St Mary's, originally founded in 1055, refounded in 1088 during the reign of William II. Befitting one of the best endowed and so wealthiest of the northern Benedictine foundations, the scale of the church is breathtaking at 350 feet in length with a chancel seemingly out of all proportion to the length of the nave. in Sadly, little remains: only the north wall of the nave and some outlines at foundation level. The Abbey was valued at over in 1132 12 reform-minded monks were expelled, taken under the wing of Clairvaux and established Fountains Abbey as the second Cistercian house in England, after Rievaulx. £2000 per year and so was amongst the last to be dissolved on 26 November 1539 when the Abbott and 50 monks surrendered to the King's Commissioners. in