Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx Abbey is set in a remote valley in the North York Moors National Park it is one of the most complete, and atmospheric, of England's abbey ruins.

Rievaulx Abbey was founded in 1132 by twelve monks from Clairvaux Abbey as a mission for the colonisation of the north of England and Scotland. It was the first Cistercian abbey in the north. With time it became one of the great Cistercian abbeys of Yorkshire, second only to Fountains Abbey in fame.