Roche Abbey is a now-ruined abbey

Abbey

An abbey is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.The term can also refer to an establishment which has long ceased to function as an abbey,...

 located near Maltby

Maltby, South Yorkshire

Maltby is a town and civil parish of 17,247 inhabitants in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England, situated in a rural area about 7 miles east of Rotherham and 12 miles north-east of Sheffield...

, South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

, England. It is situated in a valley alongside Maltby Beck and King's Wood.

Early history

The abbey was founded in 1147 when the stone buildings were raised on the north side of the beck. The co-founders of Roche were Richard de Busli, likely the great-nephew of the first Roger de Busli

Roger de Busli

Roger de Busli was a Norman baron who accompanied William the Conqueror on his successful conquest of England in 1066....

, the Norman magnate builder of Tickhill

Tickhill

Tickhill is a small, wealthy town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England, on the border with Nottinghamshire. It has a population of 5,301.-Geography:...

 Castle, and Richard FitzTurgis. When the monks first arrived in South Yorkshire from Newminster Abbey

Newminster Abbey

Newminster Abbey was a Cistercian abbey in Northumberland in the north of England. The site is protected by Grade II listed building and Scheduled Ancient Monument status...

 in Northumberland, they chose the most suitable side of the stream that runs through the valley, on which to build their new Cistercian monastery

Monastery

Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

. Twenty-five years later, at the end of the century, the Norman Gothic great church had been finished, as well as most of the other buildings. The control of the abbey was vested in the de Vesci family, lords of Rotherham, who in turn subfeuded the land to Richard FitzTurgis, lord of Wickersley (and who took Wickersley as his surname).

From the start, the Abbey of Roche, built for the so-called White Monks, as the Cistercians were known, had an almost otherworldly air. It was, after all, built at the northern end of an area once covered by Sherwood Forest

Sherwood Forest

Sherwood Forest is a Royal Forest in Nottinghamshire, England, that is famous through its historical association with the legend of Robin Hood. Continuously forested since the end of the Ice Age, Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve today encompasses 423 hectares surrounding the village of...

, and it was said that Robin Hood

Robin Hood

Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....

 went to Mass here. (A diocesan pilgrimage is still made today on Trinity Sunday.)

Eventually, on co-founder FitzTurgis' death, control of the abbey passed to his son Roger, now 'de Wickersley,' and then eventually to a granddaughter Constantia, who married William de Livet

William Levett (baron)

William Levett was lord of the manor of the South Yorkshire village of Hooton Levitt, a village named in part for his ancestors, and became the owner of the patronage of Roche Abbey on marriage to the granddaughter of the Abbey's cofounder Richard FitzTurgis, a Norman baron who co-founded Roche...

 (Levett

Levett

Levett is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Ancestors of the earliest Levett family in England, the de Livets were lords of the village of Livet, and undertenants of the de Ferrers, among the most powerful of...

), a family of Norman origin who were lords of the nearby village of Hooton Levitt

Hooton Levitt

Hooton Levitt is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England; one of four villages in the county that carry the name of Hooton, meaning 'farmstead on a spur of land'...

 (or Levett). The abbey continued in the Levett

Levett

Levett is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Ancestors of the earliest Levett family in England, the de Livets were lords of the village of Livet, and undertenants of the de Ferrers, among the most powerful of...

 family until 1377, when John Levett of Hooton Levitt

Hooton Levitt

Hooton Levitt is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England; one of four villages in the county that carry the name of Hooton, meaning 'farmstead on a spur of land'...

 sold his rights in the abbey to the London merchant Richard Barry. By the time of the dissolution full control of Roche Abbey was held by Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland

Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland

Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland was a member of the Clifford family which held the seat of Skipton from 1310 to 1676. He was married to Lady Eleanor Brandon, a niece of Henry VIII of England.-Family:...

, who came in for numerous grants at the Dissolution as he was married to the niece of King Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

.

Despoliation

The Roche Abbey records were lost or destroyed so there are no accounts of what went on in the abbey, other than there were 14 monks and an unknown number of novices at the time of dissolution in 1538. It was the dissolution

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 by King Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 that rendered the abbey to ruin, but the walls of the north and south transept

Transept

For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...

s are still impressive. The local community at time of dissolution decided they had first right of claim on Roche Abbey and its possessions. A very detailed account exists citing the terrible destruction of the abbey and its valuable artefacts. Timber, lead and stone were also removed in vast quantities.

The remarkable chronicle of the despoliation was written by Michael Sherbrook, a priest and rector of nearby Wickersley

Wickersley

Wickersley is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England, situated from central Rotherham. The area is very near to road junctions for the M1, M18 and A1...

 who watched the pillaging. "For the church was the first thing that was spoiled; then the abbot’s lodging, the dormitory and refectory, with the cloister and all the buildings around, within the abbey walls," wrote Sherbrook in his eyewitness account. "For nothing was spared except the ox-houses and swinecoates and other such houses or offices that stood outside the walls – these had greater favour shown to them than the church itself."

"This was done on the instruction of Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

, as Fox

John Foxe

John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...

 reports in his Book of Acts and Monuments", wrote Sherbrook in his remarkable account. "It would have pitied any heart to see the tearing up of the lead, the plucking up of boards and throwing down of the rafters. And when the lead was torn off and cast down into the church and the tombs in the church were all broken (for in most abbeys various noblemen and women were buried, and in some kings, but their tombs were no more regarded than those of lesser persons, for to what end should they stand when the church over them was not spared for their cause) and all things of value were spoiled, plucked away or utterly defaced, those who cast the lead into fodders plucked up all the seats in the choir where the monks sat when they said service."

"These seats were like the seats in minsters; they were burned and the lead melted, although there was plenty of wood nearby, for the abbey stood among the woods and the rocks of stone," continued Sherbrook. "Pewter vessels were stolen away and hidden in the rocks, and it seemed that every person was intent upon filching and spoiling what he could. Even those who had been content to permit the monks’ worship and do great reverence at their matins, masses and services two days previously were no less happy to pilfer, which is strange, that they could one day think it to be the house of God and the next the house of the Devil – or else they would not have been so ready to have spoiled it."

Left in ruin, the land passed through many private hands until the 4th Earl of Scarbrough

Earl of Scarbrough

Earl of Scarbrough is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1690 for Richard Lumley, 2nd Viscount Lumley. He is best remembered as one of the Immortal Seven who invited William of Orange to invade England and depose his father-in-law James II...

 decided it needed revitalising to enhance his adjoining family seat at Sandbeck Park. Lord Scarborough enlisted the talents of Capability Brown

Capability Brown

Lancelot Brown , more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English landscape architect. He is remembered as "the last of the great English eighteenth-century artists to be accorded his due", and "England's greatest gardener". He designed over 170 parks, many of which still endure...

. With an astonishing disregard for history, Brown demolished buildings, built large earth mounds and turfed the whole site. Until the end of the 19th century Roche Abbey remained buried beneath Brown's work and wooded parkland. But subsequent excavation in the 1920s returned Roche to its former splendour.

The abbey today

The site is now in the care of English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

. The cliff path walk provides access to a view across the abbey grounds where its layout can be appreciated. Many of the buildings are low-standing but the walls of the church still stand to full height and the gothic French idealism thrust into its design and architecture is visible. Later additions to the buildings included a kitchen area and abbot

Abbot

The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...

's quarters, that were built on the other side of the beck. These quarters were accessed by a bridge which still stands. The monks had latrines which were over Maltby Beck so the running water took away the waste. They dammed the stream higher up to ensure fast flowing water: quite a modern facility for the 13th century. There are several local legends concerning ghosts, tunnels to other buildings, and even a lost wishing well.

External links

• Images of Roche Abbey, RotherhamWeb, Rotherhamweb.co.uk
• Roche Abbey at English Heritage
  English Heritage
  English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...