DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61904#0218
206
RIEVAUX ABBEY.
hanging down before to the waift, and in a point behind to the
calf of the leg; and when they went abroad they wore a cowl
and a hood, all black, which was alfo the choir habit. Their
difcipline was extremely fevere, abounding in vigils day and
night.
Any one Handing on the fine terrace called Duncombe-
terrace, which looks down upon the abbey, may form an idea
of the almoft frightful folitude and favagenefs of the place in
the early days of the eftablifhment. Grainge, in his “ Caftles
and Abbeys of Yorkfliire,” fays :—“ The ruins of the abbey
are fituate in a deep, narrow valley, near the Rye, a rapid
mountain-ftream flowing from the pidturefque valley of Bils-
dale, and the bleak moors of Snilefworth. In the immediate
neighbourhood of the ruins, half a dozen lateral valleys open
out their hides, and pour their babbling brooks into the Rye,
thus prefenting great variety of fcenery; and fuch are the
windings of the main valley, that, looking from the abbey, it
appears on all hides furrounded by hills clothed in wood, rifing
to the level of the moors above ; the central point of a magni-
ficent natural amphitheatre : a grand framework of natural
beauty enclofing a noble relic of ancient art.”
But imagine this fcene, not as now, when feven hundred
years of cultivation have pafled over it, but when enveloped
in denfe woods, this network of winding valleys choked with
tangled brufhwood and briars, with no cottage-fmoke to cheer
the dark glades, no little crofts or farms to break its monotony,
and no voice but of the leaping waters refounding through its
pathlefs glens. What a dreary hufh ! What a gloomy mantle
of brooding obfcurity muft have lain on this hidden ifolated
houfe of perpetual failings, watchings, and penances ! We are
told that in thofe days the only way to the abbey was by a
fingle path, which wound here and there amid the labyrinth of
RIEVAUX ABBEY.
hanging down before to the waift, and in a point behind to the
calf of the leg; and when they went abroad they wore a cowl
and a hood, all black, which was alfo the choir habit. Their
difcipline was extremely fevere, abounding in vigils day and
night.
Any one Handing on the fine terrace called Duncombe-
terrace, which looks down upon the abbey, may form an idea
of the almoft frightful folitude and favagenefs of the place in
the early days of the eftablifhment. Grainge, in his “ Caftles
and Abbeys of Yorkfliire,” fays :—“ The ruins of the abbey
are fituate in a deep, narrow valley, near the Rye, a rapid
mountain-ftream flowing from the pidturefque valley of Bils-
dale, and the bleak moors of Snilefworth. In the immediate
neighbourhood of the ruins, half a dozen lateral valleys open
out their hides, and pour their babbling brooks into the Rye,
thus prefenting great variety of fcenery; and fuch are the
windings of the main valley, that, looking from the abbey, it
appears on all hides furrounded by hills clothed in wood, rifing
to the level of the moors above ; the central point of a magni-
ficent natural amphitheatre : a grand framework of natural
beauty enclofing a noble relic of ancient art.”
But imagine this fcene, not as now, when feven hundred
years of cultivation have pafled over it, but when enveloped
in denfe woods, this network of winding valleys choked with
tangled brufhwood and briars, with no cottage-fmoke to cheer
the dark glades, no little crofts or farms to break its monotony,
and no voice but of the leaping waters refounding through its
pathlefs glens. What a dreary hufh ! What a gloomy mantle
of brooding obfcurity muft have lain on this hidden ifolated
houfe of perpetual failings, watchings, and penances ! We are
told that in thofe days the only way to the abbey was by a
fingle path, which wound here and there amid the labyrinth of