• 3 days ago
Bygone Burnley: Whalley Abbey, with historian Roger Frost MBE 18-3-25
Transcript
00:00Today we're in Morley and we're standing in the Abbey, or the remains of the Abbey,
00:09which was one of the later Abbeys to be built because it was only founded in the 1290s.
00:18The story of the Abbey goes back before that time. It was actually founded in Cheshire at a place called Stanlow.
00:27These days Stanlow is well known for the oil refinery that is there, and there are still some remains of the original building.
00:36But it was in a very poor situation for an Abbey, and after many trials and tribulations, as they put it themselves,
00:48the monks appealed to Henry de Lacey, the third Earl of Lincoln, and asked him for permission to move somewhere else.
00:59He chose Morley, which is part of his estates, and after waiting for the death of the then incumbent,
01:12because the Abbey is very close to the church, they decided on this location.
01:20We thought we ought to let you know about some of the surviving things that can be seen of Morley.
01:27Over here is the internal gatehouse, and we've got one of the old photographs associated with this series.
01:35You can see it there behind the tree. There were five gatehouses into Morley Abbey.
01:42This is the internal one. Of the other four, only one is left, and behind that is the tower of the parish church of Morley.
01:55Now it's very uncommon for an Abbey to be so close to the church.
02:00But even more surprising to a lot of people is that the church was founded in the 7th century AD, but the Abbey didn't come until the 13th century.
02:15So there are 600 years between the foundation of the church and the foundation of the Abbey.
02:22It's usually the other way around in England, because for a long time, in the north of England in particular, there were more monastic institutions than there were churches.
02:36So in Morley it's very different. And here there are other things which are significant.
02:44You can see the low walls of the church. Well, after the pilgrimage of grace, when the Abbey fell into ruin, it was bought by families who allowed the church stone to be taken and used in other buildings.
03:07Here, from where we are now, you can see how big the church was.
03:13To give you an idea, it is roughly the same proportions of a medium-sized cathedral in Yorkshire.
03:27In the area that I'm looking at now, the boundary walls are still standing.
03:37The medieval boundary walls are still standing. You can see them in the background there.
03:42On a sunny day, we are standing in the cloisters at the Abbey at Morley.
03:48The cloister really is a rectangular area around which the monks, during the day, said their office, their prayers.
03:59They'd walk where we are now, walk in this rectangular space around the cloister and say their prayers.
04:10Look, there is the survival of several other structures.
04:15Here is what we would call a washing area. It's called a lavatorium.
04:24To clean oneself, it's not to bathe in, it was to wash your face and hands and so on.
04:32That is something which you find in all Cistercian monasteries and, of course, Morley was a Cistercian monastery.
04:41Here, we have the entrance to the chapter house where all the monks met.
04:59Then, just a little bit further on, the three little arches, those were the library where all the precious books of the Abbey were kept.
05:11Behind me is the night stairs. They are no longer there, but they led to the upper parts of the Abbey church.
05:23Over here is the scriptorium. It was also used as a dormitory.
05:31The top windows is where the barbati, they are the monks' servants.
05:38They were called that because they had beards, bearded ones. Barbati means the bearded ones.
05:46That was their sleeping quarters and underneath there was the wine stores and bread stores of the Abbey itself.
05:57Now, I'm standing in front of the entrance to the chapter house.
06:04It's not that I want to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about where exactly we are standing now.
06:12Occasionally, the Abbey authorities remove the turf here, remove the grass and expose underneath a tiled area made of medieval tiles.
06:25Now, we know that these tiles were made on site by the monks and the labourers who constructed the Abbey.
06:35Of course, they're covered over with grass because that protects them.
06:42But every night again, they're revealed. Now, it's some time I've seen them, but it's some time since they were revealed.
06:49They're beautiful, ornate, medieval tile work. We've got an example of it here in Morley.
07:01One of the problems in the medieval period was always to do with getting clean water to the Abbey.
07:12The monks, not only of the Cistercian order, but other orders, they solved the problem.
07:19In this case, they took the water out of the River Calder, higher up, and used it in the kitchens, which are here.
07:32The kitchens are being rebuilt in Elizabethan times. Not entirely, but you can see the lower part of the building is older than the bigger windows at the top.
07:44This is where all the work to supply the monks and their servants with food.
07:53Of course, at one time, there would be something like 200 people living on this site, so it was a substantial job.
08:01Coming out of the kitchen building is a small trench, which takes you to the Reridota, which was the area which we would now call the toilets.
08:19But, of course, the clean water came in first, was used in the kitchen, returned here, then it was dirtied by human waste and so on, and that was then passed back into the Calder without affecting any other part of the Abbey.
08:39Another thing we can see from here is the remains of the Abbot's lodging. Now, they, in the 17th century, once the Abbey had gone, became the home of the owning family.
08:58They were totally remodelled and rebuilt. Only just a small part of it is original. It is there now where the monastery has its present chapel and other facilities.
09:19Although I said that the Abbey was founded in the 1290s, that's not strictly true, because there was a religious building on the site before the Abbey came to be used for that purpose.
09:37What we are looking at now is the house of Peter of Chester. Now, he was a hermit, or he became a hermit, although at one time he must have been the vicar of Morley.
09:57When he was in retirement, he lived in this building behind us. Now, he lived until he was over 90, and the monks couldn't start building the Abbey until he died. So, when he did die in 1296, the monks started the work.
10:17He was, by birth, a Delacy, the French family that came to occupy all of East Lancashire, but they also had lands in Cheshire and Yorkshire and other parts of the country as well.
10:35The Cheshire branch produced a family which had a castle at Halton, and he was a member of that branch of the family. We don't know a great deal about him, but the building that he lived in has survived, and there has been a plan for some time to restore it.
10:58I think that it's on hold at the moment. It's a great pity that nothing has been done to restore it, but the building is still with us, and it is directly behind where the abbot's lodging was.
11:14We're in the main body of the Abbey now. Morley Abbey was not a parish church, so the whole of the building was used by the monks. This part of the church had the choir stalls, and this is what is left of them.
11:34They're not reconstructed. This is what they were like. They've been finished off with modern stones at the top, but beneath them is the stone foundations for the choir stalls. The stalls themselves, which are made out of wood, are in the parish church over there.
11:55They were carved in the 1420s, and are magnificent examples of the time. So, we're still within sight of the Abbey. We've still got the choir stalls, and then at the far end from where we are now, we can see a stone plinth.
12:17That is the sight of the High Altar, and behind it is the Lady Chapel. So, the church extended from behind the High Altar, coming into where the tower was, in front of the High Altar, and off to each side there were small chapels, into what was called a crossing.
12:44Here, just below the crossing, are choir stalls, and then going further than the wall behind us, is the full extent of the church. To give you an idea of how big the church was, the church itself, and I'm only referring to the church, was as big as Ripon Cathedral is today.
13:07It wasn't by any means the longest church in the country, but it was a substantial one. If you go to Ripon, you'll see what I mean.