Vale Royal Abbey

The abbey's build was problematic. Preparation took considerable time, and the first monks—led by Abbot John Chaumpeneys[6]—did not arrive at Darnhall from Dore Abbey (Vale Royal's motherhouse)[10] until 1274.[9] The new abbey provoked anger and resistance from local people, who believed that it (and its newly granted lands) threatened their livelihoods.[11] The abbey had received the forestry rights and free warren of Darnhall Forest, which surrounded the villages, and in which the villagers had previously had free rein.[6]

Darnhall's location was unsuitable for a large construction.[6][9][note 4] It may have been intended as a temporary site;[12] in 1276 Edward (by then King) agreed to move the abbey to a more suitable location. A new site was chosen in nearby Over, on the edge of the Forest of Mondrem. On 13 August 1277, the king and Queen Eleanor, their son Alphonso and a number of nobles arrived at Over to lay the foundation stones of the new abbey[6] for the high altar.[7] Chaumpeneys then said a celebratory mass.[13] In 1281, the monks moved from Darnhall to temporary accommodations on the Vale Royal site while the abbey was being built. Pevsner's Buildings of England described Vale Royal as a "late foundation as Cistercian settlements go".[14] It was intended to be the largest and most elaborate Cistercian church in Christian Europe.[15]

The precise location and boundaries of the site is difficult to determine. It lay broadly within the monks' manor of Conersley, on parcels of land later renamed Vale Royal after the royal patron. The southern boundary was probably around Petty Pool, past Earnslow to the River Weaver. Its total area was about 400 acres (160 ha).[12]

Illustration of the layout of the abbey as discovered through 20th-century archaeological excavation and its relation to the modern-day great house

During an excavation in 1958, the site of the abbey—at the time, heavily wooded and similar to its medieval appearance—was described as:

On the left bank of the river Weaver, 2½ miles southwest of Northwich. It stands on level ground from which there is a fairly rapid slope northwards down to the river, a factor which must have assisted considerably in the natural drainage of the heavy clay subsoil.[16]

— F. H. Thompson, Excavations at the Cistercian Abbey of Vale Royal, Cheshire, 1958

Edward had grand ambitions for Vale Royal, as an important abbey, surpassing all the other houses of its order in Britain in scale and beauty. It was further intended to be symbolic of the wealth and power of the English monarchy and his own piety and greatness.[9] He intended the abbey to be more grandiose than his grandfather King John's abbey at Beaulieu,[17] and as a project, it was comparable to his father's Westminster Abbey. Henry, for example, had planned to be buried at Westminster, and Edward may have had similar plans for himself at Vale Royal.[18] Vale Royal Abbey was his largest—although only known—major act of piety; he did not fund any other houses.[19] The building's plans reflect Edward's enthusiasm. Fifty-one[20] masons were employed from around the country; they were rarely local men, and may have been pressed into service.[21] The chief architect, Walter of Hereford (one of the foremost of his day),[9][note 5] began work on a huge, elaborate High Gothic church the size of a cathedral.[27]

Plans were extremely detailed; the abbey was to be furnished with thirty copes, two silver crosses, six chalices, a gold collar, a silver pastoral staff and other valuable possessions.[28] It was to be 116 metres (381 ft) long and cruciform in shape, with a central tower.[27] The east end was semi-circular, with a chevet of 13 radiating chapels, some of which were square, and some polygonal.[27] Each of the transepts had—as was common with Cistercian churches[1]—a row of three chapels on its eastern side.[27] South of the church stood a cloister 42 metres (138 ft) square, surrounded by the domestic buildings.[27] The undermaster of the works from 1278 to 1280[29]—and paid three shillings a week[21]—was John of Battle, who would later build the King's memorial crosses after Eleanor's death.[30][31] Although Walter of Hereford initially seems to have found difficulty in gathering skilled masons to the project, in the second and third years recruitment was much improved.[32][note 6] At the same time, however, the number of masons employed decreased from 92 in 1277 to 53 by 1280, who were paid between £200 and £260 over the three years.[21][note 7]

According to contemporary accounts for 1277 to 1281, 35,000 cartloads of stone—over 30 per day—were brought over rough roads nine miles from the Eddisbury quarries,[37] five miles to the west.[38][note 8] Timber came from local forests—particularly Delamere[7] and Mondrem[38]—to build workshops and dwellings,[7][note 9] which together cost 45 shillings.[20] A total of £3,000 was spent on construction during these four years,[40] and in 1283 it was arranged that £1,000 per annum would be set aside for the ongoing building.[41] Funds were to be taken straight from the King's wardrobe.[42][note 10] The King put one of his personal clerks—one Leonius, son of Leonius—in charge of the financial administration, appointing him Chamberlain of the city of Chester and custodian of the King's works at Vale Royal.[21] Putting one man in charge of both posts was intended to accelerate the speed at which the abbey received its money, as until then, the local Exchequer received money which then had to be dispersed to the work's administrator.[23] Leonius held this post for the next three years, with the "full cooperation"[21] of the local justice in what Leonius described as "the expenses incurred in the works of the lord King at Vale Royal".[21][note 11]

In the early 1280s, the king greatly expanded the initial endowment, and made large donations of cash and materials.[6] Money was plentiful and work progressed quickly.[21] Initially providing 1,000 marks in cash for the project, Edward also provided the monks with revenue from his earldom of Chester; in 1281, the Justice of Chester was instructed to disburse the same amount to the monks each year.[12] Leonius moved on to other projects that year, and the abbot was placed in personal charge of the works' administration.[44] Two years later, sufficient progress had been made to allow the new church to be consecrated by the Bishop of Durham, Anthony Bek; Edward and his court attended the service.[12] The King donated a relic of the True Cross which he had captured on his crusade to the abbey.[45] In 1287 the abbot ordered a selection of marble columns and bases to be made for the cloister. These came from the Isle of Purbeck,[38] and were created by Masters John Doget and Ralph of Chichester[note 12] to Walter of Hereford's design, at a cost to the abbey of 3s. 6d. The abbot put down a deposit of £52 for the building work generally.[46] During the winter months open stonework was covered with bundled hay to protect it from the elements.[47]

Relative lengths of Vale Royal Abbey to Westminster Abbey

The abbey's financing soon encountered difficulties. During the 1280s, the royal finances fell into arrears and eventually collapsed. War with Wales[48][note 13] had broken out in 1282,[8] and Edward needed money for troops and workmen to build castles, such as Harlech, which cemented the eventual conquest. He took the money which had been set aside for Vale Royal and its masons and other labourers.[48][note 14] This was around the time that construction began on the monks' cloister, for which the marble columns were intended.[15] The monks were still living in the temporary accommodation built at the start of the works.[8][note 15]

In 1290, Edward announced that he was no longer interested in the abbey: "the King has ceased to concern himself with the works of that church and henceforth will have nothing more to do with them".[50] When Walter of Hereford sent to the Wardrobe to claim the robe he was annually issued as part of his contract,[22] he was told this would be the last time, and he would receive neither wages nor robes from then on.[38] The precise reasons for the King's volte-face are unknown. Historians have speculated that the monks may have incurred his displeasure somehow, or that it was connected to the illness and death of Queen Eleanor in November the same year;[50] the art historian Nicola Coldstream has suggested that Edward had a "habit of abruptly stopping funds" for his religious projects.[51][note 16] It is possible, says The King's Works, that "some of the building money may have been used for other purposes without the King's leave".[52][note 17] Once-large royal grants became meagre,[55] and the situation was exacerbated by the abbey not receiving monies rightfully due to them. Queen Eleanor had left it a legacy of 350 marks in her will, with the intention of establishing a chantry in her name and contributing generally to the ongoing works. Twenty years later, the abbey was still owed over half this amount from her executors.[52] By 1291 they were in arrears to the tune of £1,808; the King authorised a one-off payment of £808, but the remainder went unpaid[56] until 1312, five years after King Edward's death.[57]

The monks struggled to complete and manage the vast project without royal officials.[58] Despite possessing a substantial income from its own lands and feudal dues, the abbey amassed large debts to other church institutions, royal officials, building contractors and even the merchants of Lucca.[6][note 18] Funds may have been misappropriated.[15] Work stopped for at least a decade after 1290, at least in part due to the transference of the county revenues from the abbey to the newborn Prince of Wales, who was also made Earl of Chester.[56] Workmen refused to work for fear of not being paid.[56] When the works eventually resumed they were on a much-reduced scale;[6] if the King had suspected embezzlement at the abbey, by 1305, suggests the History of the King's Works, he had "relented" sufficiently to make them a grant of £40 to pay for the roof.[53] The authors note that from then on, construction

Dragged on through the 14th and 15th centuries, an object lesson in the unreliability of princes and the folly of monks who had allowed themselves to be drawn into grandiose schemes inconsistent with the architectural simplicity which had once been one of the most cherished principles of the order.[8]

— History of the King's Works, 1963

With the accession of the Prince of Wales as King Edward II in 1307, some reimbursement for the abbey's funds arrived. £100 was sourced from The Peak, a nearby royal manor, and in 1312, they were granted £80 per annum from Ashford in the Peak. This only lasted five years, when the King granted the manor to his brother Edmund of Woodstock.[56]

In addition to the burden of trying to finish the abbey buildings, Vale Royal faced other serious problems. As the medievalists Gwilym Dodd and Alison McHardy have emphasised, "a religious house, like any other landlord, depended on the income from its estates as the main source of its economic wellbeing",[60] and from the late 12th century, monastic institutions were "particularly assiduous in...seeking to tighten the legal definition of servile status and tenure" for its tenantry.[60] From its foundation, Vale Royal was no exception, and the monks' relationship with their tenants and neighbours soon deteriorated and remained usually poor.[11][61][note 19] The abbey was resented by the people of Darnhall and Over, who found themselves under its feudal lordship. This made the previously free tenants villeins.[note 20] Tenants of Darnhall attempted to withdraw from paying the abbot in 1275 (only a year after the abbey's foundation), and continued to feud with Vale Royal's abbots over the next fifty years.[61] The dispute was mainly caused by forestry rights; the new abbey was in the forest of Mondrem, which had been mostly common land until it was granted to the abbey. Keeping it common land would have prevented the monks from utilising it, so the abbey effectively received immunity from the foresting laws, and, say Bostock and Hogg, "almost certainly" over-reached itself regularly.[15][note 21]

Abbots were also feudal lords, and not necessarily sympathetic landlords because of their ecclesiastical position; when their tenants appeared before the abbot's manorial court, they appeared before a judge and common law applied.[69] The abbots may have been oppressive landlords, with the people responding fiercely to what historian Richard Hilton called a form of "social degradation".[70] With a generally uncertain income, and massive outgoings, the monks may have had to be harsh landlords,[71] although they apparently undertook their duties as landlords with zeal.[72] Scholars are uncertain as to whether the abbey was as harsh a landlord as the villagers claimed. Previous landlords, such as the earls of Chester, may have been lax in their enforcement of serfdom, and so Darnhall and Over probably became accustomed to their relative freedom. Alternatively, the monks may have been lax in enforcement feudal laws, leading the villagers of Darnhall and its surrounding area to take advantage of them.[73] The villagers prosecuted their struggle in earnest, sometimes in law and sometimes with violence.[74][59] They attacked monastic officials a number of times; a monk was attacked and a servant killed while collecting tithes in Darnhall in 1320 (under Abbot Richard of Evesham),[61] and Abbot Peter was killed in 1339 while defending the abbey. They made multiple approaches to both the King and Queen—often travelling great distances to do so—but to no avail.[75]

The Round Tower Lodge is situated in the central reservation of the A556 road in Sandiway. All that survives of Vale Royal Abbey's gate lodge, the road was built around it in the 1930s. It is a Grade II listed building.

Chester

Middlewich

Over

Darnhall

Vale Royal Abbey

*Cheshire, in red, shown within England

Chester – red.
Vale Royal abbey –green
Villages under abbey's feudal lordship – orange.

Relations with the gentry were no better in the later Middle Ages than they had been with the tenantry years earlier, and the gentry also often came to blows with the monks. The abbey was involved in feuds with a number of the prominent local families, frequently ending in large-scale violence.[75] During the 14th and 15th centuries, Vale Royal was beset by other scandals. Many abbots were incompetent, venal, or criminally inclined,[note 28] and the house was often grossly mismanaged. Discipline grew lax; disorder at the abbey during this period prompted reports of serious crimes, including attempted murder. Abbot Henry Arrowsmith, who had a particular reputation for lawlessness, was hacked to death in 1437 by a group of men (one of whom was the vicar of Over) in revenge for a suspected rape by one of the abbey's monks. Although the abbey was taken under royal supervision in 1439, there was no immediate improvement, and Vale Royal of the General Chapter, the international Cistercian governing body, during the 1450s. The chapter ordered senior abbots to investigate the abbey, which the abbots concluded was in a "damnable and sinister" situation in 1455.[6] Things then improved somewhat, and Vale Royal's last years were peaceful and well-ordered.[6] Some building work continued, as records attest to grants of timber for repairs were made in 1510 and 1515.[1]

The abbot of Dore visited Vale Royal in 1509[86]—by which time the abbey held 19 monks[96]—and made a brief inventory of its rooms, including the Abbot's chambers (which were described as containing "a suitable couch, ten coverlets, four mattresses, two feather beds and twelve pairs of linen sheets").[86] According to archaeologist S. J. Moorhouse, luxuries such as these indicate how far the Cistercian focus had drifted from the order's original asceticism.[86]

Abbot John Butler died in summer 1535. The election of his replacement indicates the extent to which the local gentry interfered in the house's internal affairs. William Brereton and Piers Dutton—local knights and rivals for regional power in the county—both proposed their own candidates. The election became mired in corruption; Dutton's man, for example, offered Thomas Cromwell—Henry VIII's chief minister—£100 and promised to him "as large pleasure as any man"[97] in future. Adam Beconsall and Thomas Legh—the monastic visitor, who himself had accepted a £15 bribe—backed one John Hareware,[97] the former abbot of Hulton Abbey.[98] Furthermore, Queen Anne Boleyn herself also favoured a particular candidate. In the event, King Henry ordered a free election, and this saw Hareware elected. Although his candidate had lost, Brereton still managed to wrangle granted an annual pension of £20 from Hareware for the rest of Brereton's life. More importantly for the new abbot, Cromwell was appointed steward of the abbey by the King.[97] In common with many other monasteries—by now aware of their impending dissolution—Hareware began raising ready cash. This was done by means of negotiating long tenancies for their lands at very low rents in exchange for high entry fees.[note 29]

The Nun's Grave, Vale Royal Abbey. Detail illustrating a piece of one of the abbey's original column bases.

Nothing remains of the great church and "virtually nothing"[127] of the other ecclesiastical buildings, although archaeological work has revealed many details of the church's structure.[120] According to A. Emery, "detailed examination of the roof ... has revealed hidden structural evidence beneath layers of post-medieval changes".[127] Excavations by the Manchester architect Basil Pendleton were made in 1911–1912,[17] which he focused around the Nun's Grave. Pendleton established that the church had been 421 feet (128 m) long, with a decoratively floored 92-foot (28 m) nave. The combined width of the east and west transepts was 232 feet (71 m).[15] The remainder of the construction was, at various times, around a grassed quadrangle—possibly a 140-foot-square (43 m) herb garden. Apart from the church (which took up the east side of the square), the buildings consisted of a chapter house,[note 34] the abbot's dwelling, guest accommodations, and the outbuildings necessary for the upkeep of the community and its agricultural work.[130] Much of the abbey's stonework was sold by Holcroft when it was destroyed.[58] Some was used to build a common well;[103] at least one domestic garden in Northwich contained original carvings and bosses,[131] and abbey stones were found in the walls of three other houses.[103] It is possible that the ceiling of Weaverham church's north aisle came from Vale Royal.[132] Holcroft also rebuilt the western grange for his own use with stone from the church.[88] The south wing of the extant building incorporates the original refectory roof, which has been dendrochronologically dated to the second half of the 15th century. It consisted, writes Emery, "of a timber-framed three-bay hall, open to the roof, flanked by a pair of single bay rooms, the whole set above a masonry ground floor".[127] The 1958 excavation uncovered the 1359 additions, including the chevet apse.[17] Pieces of stained glass were uncovered in Delamere Forest,[77] while Purbeck marble and other architectural fragments were also found.[88]

Historian Jeffrey Denton has suggested that Vale Royal Abbey has been relatively unexamined by scholars because of its near-total mid-16th-century destruction; "had it survived, our views of Edward I's relations with the Church may well have been radically different".[19] A circular stone monument, known as the Nun's Grave, reportedly commemorates Sister Ida, thought to be a 14th-century Cheshire nun who nursed an unnamed Vale Royal abbot, and who was buried at the high altar.[15] The monument was erected by the Cholmondeley family, possibly to lend credence to the legend of the nun. The material in its construction is from three sources: the head from a medieval cross whose four panels depict the crucifixion, the virgin and child Jesus, St. Catherine and St. Nicholas; the shaft, made of sandstone in the 17th century; and a plinth from a reclaimed[133] pillar base. Pevsner's Buildings of England has described the monument as looking "convincingly late 13th-century",[1] and notes other remnants of pillars around the grounds "of great size and elaboration".[1] The present country house on the site incorporates parts of the south and west ranges;[134] the former has a door arch from the abbey, one of the few elements of the original abbey which is still visible.[58] At least some of the original abbey still survives to the first floor; in 1992 a British Archaeological Association study discovered late-medieval graffiti scratched into plasterwork on an internal wall.[135][note 35] Holcroft's Tudor house also stands. The building is a Grade II* listed building,[136] and St Mary's church is listed at Grade II,[134] while what remains of Vale Royal Abbey is a scheduled ancient monument.[120][121][136]