St Mary's Abbey in York once was the one of the wealthiest monasteries in England and the abbot among the most powerful clergymen of his days. The abbey was built in 1088 and consecrated to the Benedictine rule, though of course, later changes and additions were made; most of what is left looks Gothic (Early English period) to me rather than Norman, except the heavy bundled pillar in the crossing that reminds me of the Norman part of Hexham Abbey.
The Gothic parts would fit with the time the wall encircling the abbey was erected which dates to 1260. The walls proved useful several times when the abbey and the city of York quarreled about taxes and land ownership. Somehow these things always tended to come to blows in the Middle Ages.
Today only some ruins remain, but you can still sense some of the splendour in the withered stones. The estate of the monastery once occupied the entire area of the Museum Gardens. What is left are parts of the nave, the crossing and transept, and the cloister.
The decline of the abbey began when King Henry VIII banned all monasteries in England in 1530. The buildings were converted into a palace for the king when he visited York. Over time, the abbey with outbuildings and church fell into ruins until the Yorkshire Philosophical Society excavated them in the 1820ies and made efforts to preserve the remains.
The Museum Gardens were opened together with the York Museum in 1830. The Yorkshire Philosophical Society commissioned the museum, and they were also interested to preseve the ruins of St.Mary's Abbey which they had excavated in the 1820ies.
The society appointed the landscape architect Sir John Murray Naysmith to lay out a botanical garden with exotic trees and plants and integrate the Mediaeval and Roman remains. In Victorian times, the garden also held a conservatory for orchids and a pond with water lilies. Those are gone, but the ten acre park remains.
The park covers the ground that once belonged to the abbey. Parts of the walls from 1260 still remain.
After spending hours standing in front of exhibitions in the museum, it was nice to sit down in the green and have a cup of tea.
There is more where this came from. You can imagine I could not resist the temptation to take lots of pics of the old stones. Luckily, there were moments I could catch them without a bunch of school kids in red jumpers running all over the place.
Eboracum was built as legionary fort - that is, larger than the auxiliary forts at the Hadrian's Wall and the Limes - in 70 AD. A town soon developed around the fort and was protected by a wall. The Roman walls formed the basis of the Mediaeval town defenses.
The multiangular tower was erected during the time the Emperor Septimius Severus spent in York in 209-211 AD. Severus strengthened the walls and added a number of towers. One can't blame him; he had a lot of troubles with the tribes.
The tower that once stood in the west corner of the fortress has ten sides and rises to 30ft. The upper part with the different stones and archer slits is Mediaeval, but the lower rows of stones are Roman.
It kept the tribes out, but not the Danes in 867. The Danes restored the walls and towers and added another layer of finds to the York soil some of which can be seen in the Jorvik Museum. During the Middle Ages, the town walls were fortified several times, and gates added, like Monk Bar Gate.
More would be left of the town walls if not part of them had been dismantled in 1800. Which proves that George II had less power than some of his Mediaeval predecessors who'd have put the heads of the members of that Let's Tear Them Walls Down They Cost Money-coporation on spikes to display on the walls.
Grey squirrel in the Museum Gardens
That little guy is up to no good, I'm sure. It's prpbaböy squirreling away the bones of a Roman. After all, I found the fluffy tailed critter near the Roman multiangular tower.
Hmm... great setting for a sf story...
Thanky you, Shelley and Bernita.
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