Once across the river, I rather enjoyed wandering through the graveyard and the ruined end of Bolton Priory. It's not the grandest of Yorkshire's ruined abbeys by a long way, but it's in a very attractive setting and it was all looking lovely in the soft winter sunshine.
The wealth and prestige of the monasteries in the 14th, 15th and early 16th centuries was enormous, reflected in the grandeur of the buildings they constructed. Sadly, they nearly all came to grief at Henry VIII's hands in the 1500s... but we have been left with some amazing ruins, all over England and especially here in Yorkshire.
I loved the shadow cast by the tracery of a window, its glass long since disappeared (below).
This door, intact in the roofed and still functioning Nave end of the Priory Church, has some of the most elaborate hinges I have ever seen. I don't know if they are original to the church but they're certainly old.
Always very impressive, visiting places like that...
ReplyDeleteA wonderful hinge and the February light remained friendly for photography. Were the Catholic abbeys too powerful and too rich, wielding power and influence that should have been invested in government? Superficially, we only hear of Henry VIII's destruction of the abbeys but maybe there was a more complicated background to it all.
ReplyDeleteLast summer, we visited Bolton Abbey for the first time, a day out I will fondly remember for a long, long time. The weather was good, the drive relaxed, the walk enjoyable and we even were lucky to catch a guided tour of the priory church, quite by coincidence. Coffee and cake later were lobely, too.
ReplyDeleteThe photos you took remind of that say. The shadow of the window tracery is particularly beautiful.
So beautiful and poignant!
ReplyDeleteThanks for going closer and providing all these beautiful photos of the priory ruins. If it had been demolished in the 16th century, the debris has sure been picked through long ago. I imagine even some stones are now part of walls of houses or fields nearby. But it is an amazing ruin to see...just thinking of how it must have looked originally! I kind of wish our church-status as non-taxable would change, so their funds might be available for civic needs.
ReplyDeleteYour pics are super. Thanks for taking us along.
ReplyDelete