Every year, I’m tricked into thinking that autumn and winter aren’t so bad after all by some lovely sunny autumn days. And then we get to the end of November and those crisp autumn days are nowhere to be seen, and every weekend is back to back drizzle without a hint of blue sky.
Last weekend was just such a weekend, and with the forecast looking fairly grim for most of the day on Sunday, we decided to ditch the idea of a longer walk and to instead play at being tourists in our local area for the day. We settled on a visit to Rievaulx Abbey, an English Heritage site not too far from Helmsley in the North York Moors national park.
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There are plenty of monastic ruins scattered throughout the North York Moors and Dales. Monks establishing new monasteries in the Middle Ages were often leaving their previous monastery in a state of high dudgeon, offended at the opulence and extravagance the resident monks had slipped into, and seeking a return to monastic ideals. This meant picking a new site which was remote enough to guarantee a nice, hard life for the monks, and the barren hillsides of the Yorkshire dales and moors were perfect (although sometimes, such as at the original Byland Abbey, it was actually a bit too hard and the monks ended up giving up and moving to a slightly less inhospitable location).
Rievaulx was founded in 1132 by a small contingent of monks who originated from Clairvaux Abbey in France. The fortunes of the abbey waxed and waned over the four centuries it operated as a working monastery, including being pillaged by the Scots in 1322, before it succumbed (like many others) to the Dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.
We really enjoyed having a wander around the ruins – we thought it was just as good as the ruins of Fountains Abbey, and a lot quieter. Entry is free for English Heritage members: for the two of us we paid £25, which included a few hours car parking (which is pay and display). The car park is for abbey visitors only, so if you are wanting to walk around the local area, speak to staff in the visitor centre who can direct you as to the best place to leave your car.
When we arrived, the abbey was quite busy, so we did decide to go for a short walk to let a few people leave before we went in! We followed a short, 4km circular route from our Pocket Mountains guide to the North York Moors, which starts from the abbey and follows quiet country lanes, field paths and woodland trails for a nice walk of around an hour. This route isn’t particularly strenuous (although it did take a fair bit of balance to avoid slipping over in the mud walking along the field paths), and there aren’t any show stopping views, but it did help to take the edge off the dogs’ energy before we walked around the abbey.
Dog friendly rating – 5/5. We were really impressed by how dog friendly the abbey was. When I asked where the dogs were allowed when I bought our tickets, the answer was ‘everywhere you can go the dogs can go too, as long as they’re on a lead’. This was especially appreciated when the heavens opened and we were able to shelter from the rain in the very interesting on site museum! The museum tells the story of the abbey from foundation to dissolution, and also has a number of artefacts from Rievaulx and other nearby monasteries. If you decide to do the walk that we did, we kept leads on all the way around as there were either sheep or pheasants (and I mean a lot of pheasants), but there weren’t any stiles to worry about.
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