W/C 7th September 2013 - Beauvale Priory

It was the national Heritage Open Day weekend, so I took the opportunity to walk over to Beauvale Priory, where they were holding guided tours of the site. The circular walk was around 16 miles. It covered territory mentioned in earlier walks, so I confined photos to the priory area itself.

The priory has an excellent tearoom which is highly recommended - see HERE for a link to the web site. This includes the history of the Carthusian priory, or more correctly charterhouse - one of only 13 built in England. The priory has always interested me. I remember my headmaster at junior school mentioning it many years ago. "Beauvale" sounds really romantic. I have passed the site many times on my walks. These are usually on days when the tearooms are closed, so I have never managed to get a close look before now.

This is the view of the site from the approach road. The original gatehouse building, which I omitted to take a closer shot of is in the foreground. This has been converted into the tearoom.

 The whole site is swarming with a huge variety of chickens and other birds........

 This is the view of the remains of the main ruins from behind the gatehouse. The farm cottage is on the left.

 .......and a closer look across the cottage garden. The prior's house is on the left, with the remains of the chapel behind the tall red wall.

 Birds were everywhere, including the cottage garden....

 This is the delightfully restored farm cottage, partly constructed out of the remains of the priory.

 This is a modern memorial stone to two of its priors, St John Houghton and St Robert Lawrence, who were the first martyrs of the English Reformation.

 The stone was placed roughly where the altar of the chapel would have been. The main part of the chapel  would have been to the right of the wall in the background.

 Above is a close-up of a doorway - shown on the right in this view of the prior's accommodation. It was later used as a hayloft.

 This is the interior view, showing the remains of a fireplace.

 .....and here is a final view of the site. The whole site was originally intended to house only 13 monks.

Inside the tearoom is a map of what the priory probably looked like before the Reformation. It had a gatehouse, chapel, cloisters, individual small houses for the monks, an orchard and fishponds. The whole site was enclosed by a tall stone wall.

The site does not look as dramatic today as some larger, better-preserved monastic sites in England. Mount Grace Priory in Yorkshire is a better preserved Carthusian site, for example - but Beauvale is a very interesting piece of local history.

The site is open to the public whenever the tearooms are open. What made this weekend special was that guided tours were offered too.

Many thanks to the site owners for a fascinating glimpse into the past.