The Ledger Book of Vale Royal
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.
The abbey church of St Mary the Virgin, St Nicholas, and St Nicasius, Vale Royal
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Vale Royal Abbey
F. H. Thompson
Excavations at the Cistercian Abbey of Vale Royal, Cheshire, 1958
No woman was able to marry outside the manor or outside her conditions of bondage without permission and a charge; when a woman became pregnant she had to make a payment to the lord; men and women could be punished for sins committed or else make a suitable payment; none could work for another without the lord's consent but were required to work for him at his will; the holding and working of land outside the manor was restricted...and, lastly, peasants were not allowed to dispose of their property by means of will or gift as their goods belonged to their lord.
* Cheshire, in red, shown within England
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Church of St Mary, Whitegate and Marton
History of the King's Works, 1963
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Foundations of the church, surviving rooms within later house, earthworks. Gate chapel survives as parish church
A. J. Bostock and S. M. Hogg
abdij in het Verenigd Koninkrijk
The abbot and the community of monks moved from their temporary wooden lodgings, then "unsightly and ruinous", into the new monastic buildings. Much work still needed to be done; the vaults, roof, cloisters, chapter house, dormitory, refectory and other offices either needed to be completed or else started.
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.
England#Cheshire
Whitegate, Cheshire, United Kingdom
We have a very large church commenced by the King of England at our first foundation, but by no means finished. For at the beginning he built the stone walls, but the vaults remain to be erected together with the roof and the glass and the other ornaments. Moreover, the cloister, chapterhouse, dormitory, refectory and other monastic offices still remain in proportion to the church; and for the accomplishment of this the revenues of our house are insufficient.
Ehemaliges Zisterzienserkloster in Ceshire
former Cistercian Abbey and country house in Cheshire, England, UK
Abbaye de Vale Royal